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JEAN OF GREENACRES 


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Jean Surely Made an Attractive Picture 

Sec page 18 




JEAN OF 
GREENACRES 


by 

IZOLA L; FORRESTER 

II 

AUTHOR OF 4 *G REEN ACRE GIRLS,” 
THE POLLY PAGE BOOKS, ETC. 


WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY 
ANNA GARRETT 



PHILADELPHIA 

GEORGE W. JACOBS & COMPANY 
PUBLISHERS 


Copyright, 1911, by 
George W. Jacobs & Company 
Published April , 1917 



MAY -5 1917 


All rights reserved 
Printed in V. S. A. 


©CI.A462304 

\ 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER 

I 

A Knight of the Bumpers . 





PAGE 

9 

II 

Christmas Guests .... 





25 

III 

Evergreen and Candlelight 





43 

IV 

The Judge’s Sweetheart 





59 

V 

Just a City Sparrow . 





81 

VI 

“Arrows of Longing” ? 





99 

VII 

The Call Home .... 





115 

VIII 

Seeking Her Goal 





183 

IX 

Jean Mothers the Brood 





153 

X 

Cousin Roxy’s “Social” . 





171 

XI 

Cynthy’s Neighbors . 





183 

XII 

First Aid to Providence . 





199 

XIII 

Mounted on Pegasus . 





223 

XIV 

Carlota 





239 

XV 

At Morel’s Studio 





253 

XVI 

Greenacre Letters 





269 

XVII 

Billie’s Fighting Chance 





285 

XVIII 

The Path of the Fire . 





SOI 

XIX 

Ralph’s Homeland 





317 

XX 

Open Windows .... 





331 



JEAN OF GREENACRES 


CHAPTER I 

A KNIGHT OF THE BUMPERS 

It was Monday, just five days before Christ- 
mas. The little pink express card arrived in 
the noon mail. The girls knew there must be 
some deviation from the usual daily mail routine, 
when the mailman lingered at the white post. 

Jean ran down the drive and he greeted her 
cheerily. 

“Something for you folks at the express office, 
I reckon. If it’s anything hefty you’d better go 
down and get it today. Looks like we’d have a 
flurry of snow before nightfall.” 

He waited while Jean glanced at the card. 

“Know what it is?” 

“Why, I don’t believe I do,” she answered, 
regretfully. “Maybe they’re books for Father.” 

“Like enough,” responded Mr. Ricketts, mus- 
ingly. “I didn’t know. I always feel a little 
mite interested, you know.” 


12 


JEAN OF GREENACRES 


“ Yes, I know,” laughed Jean, as he gathered 
up his reins and jogged off down the bridge road. 
She hurried back to the house, her head sideways 
to the wind. The hall door banged as Kit let 
her in, her hands floury from baking. 

“Why on earth do you stand talking all day 
to that old gossip? Is there any mail from the 
west?” 

“He only wanted to know about an express 
bundle; whether it was hefty or light, and where 
it came from and if we expected it,” Jean replied, 
piling the mail on the dining-room table. “There 
is no mail from Saskatoon, sister fair.” 

“Well, I only wanted to hear from Honey. 
He promised me a silver fox skin for Christmas 
if he could find one.” 

Kit’s face was perfectly serious. Honey had 
asked her before he left Gilead Center just what 
she would like best, and, truthful as always, Kit 
had told him a silver fox skin. The other girls 
had nicknamed it “The Quest of the Silver Fox,” 
and called Honey a new Jason, but Kit still held 
firmly to the idea that if there was any such 
animal floating around, Honey would get it for 
her. 

Jean was engrossed in a five-page letter from 
one of the girl students at the Academy back in 


A KNIGHT OF THE BUMPERS 13 


New York where she had studied the previous 
winter. The sunlight poured through the big 
semicircular bay window at the south end of the 
dining-room. Here Doris and Helen main- 
tained the plant stand, a sort of half-moon 
pyramid, homemade, with rows of potted ferns, 
geraniums, and begonias on its steps. Helen 
had fashioned some window boxes too, covered 
with birchbark and lined with moss, trying to 
coax some adder’s tongue and trailing ground 
myrtle, with even some wild miniature pines, like 
J apanese dwarfs, to stay green. 

“It has turned bleak and barren out of doors 
so suddenly,” said Helen. “One day it was all 
beautiful yellow and russet and even old rose, but 
the next, after that heavy frost, it was all dead. 
I’m glad pines don’t mind frost and cold.” 

“Pines are the most optimistic, dearest trees 
of all,” Kit agreed, opening up an early spring 
catalogue. “If it wasn’t for the pines and these 
catalogues to encourage one, I’d want to hunt a 
woodchuck hole and hiberate.” 

“Hibernate,” Jean corrected absently. 

Now, one active principle in the Robbins 
family was interest in each other’s affairs. It 
was called by various names. Doris said it was 
“nosing.” Helen called it “petty curiosity.” 


14 


JEAN OF GREENACRES 


But Kit came out flatly and said it was based 
primarily on inherent family affection ; that neces- 
sarily every twig of a family tree must be in- 
tensely and vitally interested in every single 
thing that affected any sister twig. Accordingly, 
she deserted her catalogues with their enticing 
pictures of flowering bulbs, and, leaning over 
Jean’s chair, demanded to know the cause of her 
absorption. 

“Bab Crane is taking up expression.” Jean 
turned back to the first page of the letter she 
had been reading. “She says she never fully 
realized before that art is only the highest form 
of expressing your ideals to the world at large.” 

“Tell her she’s all wrong.” Kit shook her mop 
of boyish curls decidedly. “Cousin Roxy told 
me the other day she believes schools were first 
invented for the relief of distressed parents just 
to give them a breathing spell, and not for 
children at all.” 

“Still, if Bab’s hit a new trail of interest, it 
will make her think she’s really working. Things 
have come to her so easily, she doesn’t appreciate 
them. Perhaps she can express herself now.” 

“Express herself? For pity’s sake, Jeanie. 
Tell her to come up here, and we’ll let her express 
herself all over the place. Oh! Just smell my 


A KNIGHT OF THE BUMPERS 15 


mince pies this minute. Isn’t cooking an ex- 
pression of individual art too?” said Kit teasingly 
as she made a bee line for the oven in time to 
rescue four mince pies. 

“Who’s going to drive down after the Christ- 
mas box?” Mrs. Robbins glanced in at the group 
in the sunlight. “I wish to send an order for 
groceries too and you’ll want to be back before 
dark.” 

“I’m terribly sorry, Mother dear,” called Kit 
from the kitchen, “but Sally and some of the 
girls are coming over and I promised them I’d 
go after evergreen and Princess pine. We’re 
gathering it for wreaths and stars to decorate the 
church.” 

“And I promised Father if his magazines 
came, I’d read to him,” Helen added. “And 
here they are, so I can’t go.” 

“Dorrie and I’ll go. I love the drive.” Jean 
handed Bab’s letter over to Kit to read, and gave 
just a bit of a sigh. Not a real one, only a bit 
of a one. Nobody could possibly have sustained 
any inward melancholy at Greenacres. There 
was too much to be done every minute of the day. 
Kit often said she felt exactly like “Twinkles,” 
Billie’s gray squirrel, whirling around in its cage. 

Still, Bab’s letter did bring back strongly the 


16 


JEAN OF GREENACRES 


dear old times last winter at the Art Academy. 
Perhaps the girl students did take themselves 
and their aims too seriously, and had been like 
that prince in Tennyson’s “Princess,” who mis- 
took the shadow for the substance. Yet it had 
all been wonderfully happy and interesting. 
Even in the hills of rest, she missed the com- 
panionship of girls her own age with the same 
tastes and interests as herself. 

Shad harnessed up Princess and drove around 
to the side porch steps. It seemed as if he grew 
taller all the time. When the minister from the 
little white church had come to call, he had found 
Shad wrapping up the rose bushes in their winter 
coats of sacking. Shad stood up, six feet of 
lanky, overgrown, shy Yankee boy, and shook 
hands. 

“Well, well, Shadrach, son, you’re getting 
nearer heaven sooner than most of us, aren’t 
you?” laughed Mr. Peck. And he was. Grew 
like a weed, Shad himself said, but Doris told 
him pines grew fast too, and she thought that 
some day he’d be a Norway spruce which is used 
for ship-masts. 

Mrs. Robbins came out carrying her own warm 
fur cloak to wrap Doris in, and an extra lap robe. 

“Better take the lantern along,” advised Shad, 


A KNIGHT OF THE BUMPERS 17 


in his slow drawling way. “Looks like snow and 
it’ll fall dark kind of early.” 

He went back to the barn and brought a 
lantern to tuck in under the seat. Princess, 
dancing and side stepping in her anxiety to be 
off, took the road with almost a scamper. Her 
winter coat was fairly long now, and Doris said 
she looked like a Shetland pony. 

It was seven miles to Nantic, but the girls 
never tired of the ride. It was so still and dream- 
like with the early winter silence on the land. 
They passed only Jim Barlow, driving his yoke 
of silver gray oxen up from the lumber mill with 
a load of logs to be turned into railroad ties, and 
Sally’s father with a load of grain, waving his 
whipstock in salute to them. 

Sally herself was at the “ell” door of the big 
mill house, scraping out warm cornmeal for her 
white turkeys. She saluted them too with the 
wooden spoon. 

“I’m going after evergreen as soon as I get 
my dishes washed up,” she called happily. 
“Goodbye.” 

Along the riverside meadows they saw the two 
little Peckham boys driving sheep with Shep, 
their black and white dog, barking madly at the 
foot of a tall hickory tree. 


18 


JEAN OF GREENACRES 


“Got a red squirrel up there,” called Benny, 
proudly. 

“Sally says they’re making all their Christmas 
presents themselves,” said Doris, thinking of the 
large family the mill house nested. “They al- 
ways do, every year. She says she thinks pre- 
sents like that are ever so much more loving than 
those you just go into a store and buy. She’s 
got them all hidden away in her bureau drawer, 
and the key’s on a ribbon around her neck.” 

“Didn’t we make a lot of things too, pigeon? 
Birchbark, hand-painted cards, and pine pillows, 
and sweet fern boxes. Mother says she never 
enjoyed getting ready for Christmas so much as 
this year. Wait a minute.” Jean spied some 
red berries in the thicket overhanging the rail 
fence. 

She handed Doris the reins, and jumping from 
the carriage, climbed the fence to reach the 
berries. Down the road came the hum of an au- 
tomobile, a most unusual sound on Gilead high- 
ways. Princess never minded them and Doris 
turned out easily for the machine to pass. 

The driver was Hardy Philips, the store 
keeper’s son at Nantic. He swung off his cap at 
sight of Jean. She surely made an attractive 
picture with the background of white birches 


A KNIGHT OF THE BUMPERS 19 


against red oak and deep green pine, and over 
one shoulder the branches of red berries. The 
two people on the back seat looked back at her, 
slim and dark as some wood sprite, with her home 
crocheted red cap and scarf to match, with one 
end tossed over her shoulder. 

“Somebody coming home for Christmas, I 
guess,” she said, getting back into the carriage 
with her spoils. “Princess, you are the dearest 
horse about not minding automobiles. Some 
stand right up and paw the air when one goes by. 
You’ve got the real Robbins’ poise and disposi- 
tion.” 

Doris was snuggling down into the fur robe. 

“My nose is cold. I wish I had a mitten for it. 
It’s funny, Jeanie. I don’t mind the cold a bit 
when I walk through the woods to school, but I 
do when we’re driving.” 

“Snuggle under the rug. We’ll be there 
pretty soon.” 

J ean drove with her chin up, eyes alert, cheeks 
rosy. There was a snap in the air that “perked 
you right up,” as Cousin Roxy would say, and 
Princess covered the miles lightly, the click of 
her hoofs on the frozen road almost playing a 
dance tempo . When they stopped at the hitch- 
ing post above the railroad tracks, Doris didn’t 


20 


JEAN OF GREENACRES 


want to wait in the carriage, so she followed Jean 
down the long flight of wooden steps that led to 
the station platform from the hill road above. 
And just as they opened the door of the little 
stuffy express office, they caught the voice of Mr. 
Briggs, the agent, not pleasant and sociable as 
when he spoke to them, but sharp and high 
pitched. 

“Well, you can’t loaf around here, son, I tell 
you that right now. The minute I spied you 
hiding behind that stack of ties down the track, 
I knew you’d run away from some place, and I’m 
going to find out all about you and let your folks 
know you’re caught.” 

“I ain’t got any folks,” came back a boy’s 
voice hopefully. “I’m my own boss and can go 
where I please.” 

“Did you hear that. Miss Robbins ?” exclaimed 
Mr. Briggs, turning around at the opening of 
the door. “Just size him up, will you. He says 
he’s his own boss, and he ain’t any bigger than a 
pint of cider. Where did you come from?” 

“Off a freight train.” 

Mr. Briggs leaned his hands on his knees and 
bent down to get his face on a level with the 
boy’s. 

“Ain’t he slick, though? Can’t get a bit of 


A KNIGHT OF THE BUMPERS 21 


real information out of him except that he liked 
the looks of Nantic and dropped off the slow 
freight when she was shunting back and forth up 
yonder. What's your name?” 

“Joe. Joe Blake.” He didn’t look at Mr. 
Briggs, but off at the hills, wind swept and bare 
except for their patches of living green pines. 
There was a curious expression in his eyes, Jean 
thought, not loneliness, but a dumb fatalism. As 
Cousin Roxy might have put it, it was as if all 
the waves and billows of trouble had passed over 
him, and he didn’t expect anything better. 

“How old are you?” 

“ ’Bout nine or ten.” 

“What made you drop off that freight here?” 

Joe was silent and seemed embarrassed. 
Doris caught a gleam of appeal in his glance and 
responded instantly. 

“Because you liked it best, isn’t that why?” she 
suggested eagerly. Joe’s face brightened up at 
that. 

“I liked the looks of the hills, but when I saw 
all them mills I — I thought I’d get some work 
maybe.” 

“You’re too little.” Mr. Briggs cut short 
that hope in its upspringing. “I’m going to 
hand you right over to the proper authorities, and 


22 


JEAN OF GREENACRES 


you’ll land up in the State Home for Boys if you 
haven’t got any folks of your own.” 

Joe met the shrewd, twinkly grey eyes doubt- 
fully. His own filled with tears reluctantly, big 
tears that rose slowly and dropped on his worn 
short coat. He put his hand up to his shirt collar 
and held on to it tightly as if he would have kept 
back the ache there, and Jean’s heart could stand 
it no longer. 

‘‘I think he belongs up at Greenacres, please, 
Mr. Briggs,” she said quickly. “I know Father 
and Mother will take him up there if he hasn’t 
any place to go, and we’ll look after him. I’m 
sure of it. He can drive back with us.” 

“But you don’t know where he came from nor 
anything about him, Miss Robbins. I tell you 
he’s just a little tramp. You can see that, or he 
wouldn’t be hitching on to freight trains. That 
ain’t no way to do if you’re decent God-fearing 
folks, riding the bumpers and dodging train- 
men.” 

“Let me take him home with me now, anyway,” 
pleaded Jean. “We can find out about him 
later. It’s Christmas Friday, you know, Mr. 
Briggs.” 

There was no resisting the appeal that under- 
lay her words and Mr. Briggs capitulated grace- 


A KNIGHT OF THE BUMPERS 23 


fully, albeit he opined the county school was the 
proper receptacle for all such human rubbish. 

Jean laughed at him happily, as he stood 
warming himself by the big drum stove, his feet 
wide apart, his hands thrust into his blue coat 
pockets. 

“It’s your own doings. Miss Robbins,” he 
returned dubiously. “I wouldn’t stand in your 
way so long as you see fit to take him along. 
But he’s just human rubbish. Want to go, Joe?” 

And Joe, knight of the bumpers, rose, wiping 
his eyes with his coat sleeve, and glared resent- 
fully back at Mr. Briggs. At Jean’s word, he 
shouldered the smaller package and carted it up 
to the waiting carriage while Mr. Briggs leisurely 
came behind with the wooden box. 

“Guess you’ll have to sit on that box in the 
back, Joe,” Jean said. “We’re going down to 
the store, and then home. Sit tight.” She 
gathered up the reins. “Thank you ever and 
ever so much, Mr. Briggs.” 

It was queer, Mr. Briggs said afterwards, but 
nobody could be expected to resist the smile of a 
Robbins. He swung off his cap in salute, watch- 
ing the carriage spin down the hill, over the long 
mill bridge and into the village with the figure of 
Joe perched behind on the Christmas box. 







CHRISTMAS GUESTS 



CHAPTER II 


CHRISTMAS GUESTS 

Helen caught the sound of returning wheels 
on the drive about four o’clock. It was nearly 
dark. She stood on the front staircase, leaning 
over the balustrade to reach the big wrought iron 
hall lamp. When she opened the door widely, 
its rays shining through the leaded red glass, cast 
a path of welcome outside. 

“Hello, there,” Jean called. “We’re all here.” 

Doris jumped to the ground and took Joe by 
the hand, giving it a reassuring squeeze. He was 
shivering, but she hurried him around to the 
kitchen door and they burst in where Kit was get- 
ting supper. Over in a corner lay burlap sacks 
fairly oozing green woodsy things for the Christ- 
mas decoration at the church, and Kit had 
fastened up one long trailing length of ground 
evergreen over an old steel engraving of Daniel 
Webster that Cousin Roxy had given them. 

“He ain’t as pretty as he might be,” she had 
said, pleasantly, “but I guess if George Wash- 


28 


JEAN OF GREENACRES 


ington was the father of his country, we’ll have to 
call Daniel one of its uncles.” 

“Look, Kit,” Doris cried, quite as if Joe had 
been some wonderful gift from the fairies instead 
of a dusty, tired, limp little derelict of fate and 
circumstance. “This is Joe, and he’s come to 
stay with us. Where’s Mother?” 

One quick look at Joe’s face checked all 
mirthfulness in Kit. There were times when 
silence was really golden. She was always in- 
tuitive, quick to catch moods in others and under- 
stand them. This case needed the Motherbird. 
Joe was fairly blue from the cold, and there was 
a pinched, hungry look around his mouth and 
nose that made Kit leave her currant biscuits. 

“Upstairs with Father. Run along quick and 
call her, Dorrie.” She knelt beside Joe and 
smiled that radiant, comradely smile that was 
Kit’s special present from her fairy godmother. 
“We’re so glad you’ve come home,” she said, 
drawing him near the crackling wood fire. “You 
sit on the woodbox and just toast.” She slipped 
back into the pantry and dipped out a mug of 
rich, creamy milk, then cut a wide slice of warm 
gingerbread. “There now. See how that tastes. 
.You know, it’s the funniest thing how wishes 
come true. I was just longing for somebody to 


CHRISTMAS GUESTS 


29 


sample my cake and tell me if it was good. Is 
it?” 

J oe drank nearly the whole glass of milk before 
he spoke, looking over the rim at her with very 
sleepy eyes. 

“It’s awful good,” he said. “I ain’t had 
anything to eat since yesterday morning.” 

“Oh, dear,” cried Kit. This was beyond her. 
She turned with relief at Mrs. Robbins’ quick 
light step in the hall. 

“Yes, dear, I know. Jeanie told me.” She 
put Kit to one side, and went straight over to the 
wood box. And she did just the one right thing. 
That was the marvel of the Motherbird. She 
seemed always to know naturally what a person 
needed most and gave it to them. Down she 
stooped and took Joe in her arms, his head on her 
shoulder, patting him while he began to cry chok- 
ingly. 

“Never mind, laddie, now,” she told him. 
“You’re home.” She lifted him to her lap and 
started to untie his worn sodden shoes. “Doris, 
get your slippers, dear, and a pair of stockings 
too, the heavy ones. Warm the milk. Kit, it’s 
better that way. And you cuddle down on the 
old lounge by the sitting room fire, J oe, and rest. 
That’s our very best name for the world up here. 


30 


JEAN OF GREENACRES 


did you know it? We call it our hills of rest.” 

Shad came in breezily, bringing the Christmas 
boxes and a shower of light snow. He stared at 
the stranger with a broad grin of welcome. 

“Those folks that went up in the automobile 
stopped off at Judge Ellis’s. Folks from Bos- 
ton, I understood Hardy to say. He just 
stopped a minute to ask what was in the boxes, 
so I thought I’d inquire too.” 

Nothing of interest ever got by the Greenacre 
gate posts if Shad could waylay it. Helen asked 
him to open the boxes right away, but no, Shad 
would not. And he showed her where it was 
written, plain as could be, in black lettering along 
one edge: 

"Not to be opened till Christmas.” 

Mrs. Robbins had gone into the sitting room 
and found a gray woolen blanket in the wall 
closet off the little side hall. From the chest of 
drawers she took some of Doris’s outgrown win- 
ter underwear. Supper was nearly ready, but 
Joe was to have a warm bath and be clad in clean 
fresh clothing. Tucking him under one wing, as 
Kit said, she left the kitchen and Jean told the 
rest how she had rescued him from Mr. Briggs’s 
righteous indignation and charitable intentions. 


CHRISTMAS GUESTS 


31 


“Got a good face and looks you square in the 
eye,” said Shad. “I’d take a chance on him any 
day, and he can help around the place a lot, 
splitting kindlings, and shifting stall bedding and 
what not.” 

The telephone bell rang and Jean answered. 
Rambling up through the hills from Norwich was 
the party line, two lone wires stretching from 
home-hewn chestnut poles. Its tingling call 
was mighty welcome in a land where so little of 
interest or variation ever happened. This time 
it was Cousin Roxy at the other end. After her 
marriage to the Judge, they had taken the long 
deferred wedding trip up to Boston, visiting rela- 
tives there, and returning in time for a splendid 
old-fashioned Thanksgiving celebration at the 
Ellis homestead. Maple Lawn was closed for 
the winter but Hiram, the hired man, “elected”, 
as he said, to stay on there indefinitely and work 
the farm on shares for Miss Roxy as he still called 
her. 

“And like enough,” Cousin Roxy said com- 
fortably, when she heard of his intentions, “he’s 
going to marry somebody himself. I wouldn’t 
put it past him a mite. I wish he’d choose 
Cindy Anson. There she is living alone down in 
that little bit of a house, running a home bakery 


32 


JEAN OF GREENACRES 


when she’s born to fuss over a man. I told 
Hiram when I left, if I was him I’d buy all my 
pies and cake from Cindy, and then when I drove 
by Cindy’s I just dropped a passing word about 
how badly I felt at leaving such a fine man as 
Hiram to shift for himself up at the house, so she 
said she’d keep an eye on him.” 

“But, Cousin Roxy,” Jean had objected, 
“that’s match-making.” 

“Maybe ’tis so,” smiled Roxy placidly. “But 
I always did hold to it that Cupid and Providence 
both needed a sight of jogging along to keep 
them stirring.” 

Over the telephone now came her voice, vibrant 
and cheery, and Jean answered the call. 

“Hello, yes, this is Jean. Mother’s right in 
the sitting room. Who? Oh, wait till I tell the 
girls.” She turned her head, her brown eyes 
sparkling. “Boston cousins over at the Judge’s. 
Who did you say they are, Cousin Roxy? Yes? 
Cousin Beth and Elliott Newell. I’ll tell 
Father right away. Tomorrow morning early? 
That’s splendid. Goodbye.” 

Before the girls could stop her, she was on her 
way upstairs. The largest sunniest chamber had 
been turned into the special retiring place of the 
king, as Helen called her father. 


CHRISTMAS GUESTS 


33 


“All kings and emperors had some place where 
they could escape from formality and rest up,” 
she had declared. “And Plato loved to hide 
away in his olive grove, so that is Dad’s. Some- 
body else, I think it’s Emerson, says we ought 
to keep an upper chamber in our souls, well swept 
and garnished, with windows wide.” 

“Not too wide this kind of weather, Helenita,” 
Jean interrupted, for Helen’s wings of poetry 
were apt to flutter while she forgot to shake her 
duster. Still, it was true, and one of the charms 
of the old Mansion House was its spaciousness. 
There were many rooms, but the pleasantest of 
all was the “king’s thinking place.” 

The months of relaxation and rest up in the 
hills had worked wonders in Mr. Robbins’ health. 
As old Dr. Gallup was apt to say when Kit re- 
belled at the slowness of recovery, 

“Can’t expect to do everything in a minute. 
Even the Lord took six days to fix things the 
way he liked them.” 

Instead of spending two-thirds of his time in 
bed or on the couch now, he would sit up for 
hours and walk around the wide porch, or even 
along the garden paths before the cold weather 
set in. But there still swept over him without 
warning the great fatigue and weakness, the 


34 


JEAN OF GREENACRES 


dizziness and exhaustion which had followed as 
one of the lesser ills in his nervous break- 
down. 

He sat before the open fire now, reading from 
one of his favorite weeklies, with Gladness pur- 
ring on his knees. Doris had found Gladness 
one day late in October, dancing along the barren 
stretch of road going over to Gayhead school, for 
all the world like a yellow leaf. She was a yellow 
kitten with white nose and paws. Also, she un- 
doubtedly had the gladsome carefree disposition 
of the natural bom vagabond, but Doris had 
tucked her up close in her arms and taken her 
home to shelter. 

Some day, the family agreed, when all hopes 
and dreams had come true, Doris would erect all 
manner and kind of little houses all over the hun- 
dred and thirty odd acres around the Mansion 
House and call them Inns of Rest, so she would 
feel free to shelter any living creature that was 
fortunate enough to fall by the wayside near 
Greenacres’ gate posts. 

Cousin Roxy had looked at the yellow kitten 
with instant recognition. 

“That’s a Scarborough kitten. Sally Scar- 
borough’s raised yellow kittens with white paws 
ever since I can remember.” 


CHRISTMAS GUESTS 


35 


“Had I better take it back?” asked Doris 
anxiously. 

“Land, no, child. It’s a barn cat. You can 
tell that, it’s so frisky. Ain’t got a bit of repose 
or common sense. Like enough Mis’ Scar- 
borough’d be real glad if it had a good home. 
Give 'it a happy name, and feed it well, and it’ll 
slick right up.” 

So Gladness had remained, but not out in the 
barn. Somehow she had found her way up to 
the rest room and its peace must have appealed 
to her, for she would stay there hours, dozing with 
half closed jade green eyes and incurved paws. 
Kit said she had taken Miss Patterson’s place as 
nurse, and was ever so much more dependable 
and sociable to have around. 

“Father, dear,” Jean exclaimed, entering the 
quiet room like an autumn flurry of wind. 
“What do you think? Cousin Roxy has just 
’phoned, and she wants me to tell you two Boston 
cousins are there. Did you hear the machine go 
up this afternoon? Beth and Elliott Newell. 
Do you remember them?” 

“Rather,” smiled Mr. Robbins. “It must be 
little Cousin Beth and her boy. I used to visit 
at her old home in Weston when I was a little 
boy. She wanted to be an artist, I know.” 


36 


JEAN OF GREENACRES 


Jean had knelt before the old gray rock fire- 
place, slipping some light sticks under the big 
back log. At his last words she turned with 
sudden interest and sat down cross legged on the 
rug just as if she had been a little girl. 

“Oh, father, an artist? And did she study and 
succeed? 

“I think so. I remember she lived abroad for 
some time and married there. Her maiden name 
was Lowell, Beth Lowell.” 

“Did she marry an artist too?” Jean leaned 
forward, her eyes bright with romance, but Mr. 
Robbins laughed. 

“No, indeed. She married Elliott’s father, a 
schoolmate from Boston. He went after her, 
for I suppose he tired of waiting for Beth’s 
career to come true. Listen a minute.” 

Up from the lower part of the house floated 
strains of music. Surely there had never issued 
such music from a mouth organ. It quickened 
one into action like a violin’s call. It proclaimed 
all that a happy heart might say if it had a mouth 
organ to express itself with. And the tune was 
the old-fashioned favorite of the fife and drum 
corps, “The Girl I Left Behind Me.” 

“It must be Joe,” Jean said, smiling mischie- 


CHRISTMAS GUESTS 


37 


vously up at her father, for Joe was still unknown 
to the master of the house. She ran out to the 
head of the stairs. 

“Can Joe come up, Motherie?” 

Up he came, fresh from a tubbing, wearing 
Doris’s underwear, and an old shirt of Mr. Rob- 
bins’, very much too large for him, tucked into his 
worn corduroy knee pants. His straight blonde 
hair fairly glistened from its recent brushing and 
his face shone, but it was Joe’s eyes that won him 
friends at the start. Mixed in color they were 
like a moss agate, with long dark lashes, and just 
now they were filled with contentment. 

“They wanted me to play for them down- 
stairs,” he said gravely, stopping beside Mr. 
Robbins’ chair. “I can play lots of tunes. My 
mother gave me this last Christmas.” 

This was the first time he had mentioned his 
mother and Jean followed up the clue gently. 

“Where, Joe?” 

He looked down at the burning logs, shifting 
his weight from one foot to the other. 

“Over in Providence. She got sick and they 
took her to the hospital and she never came back.” 

“Not at all?” 

He shook his head. 


38 


JEAN OF GREENACRES 


“Then, afterwards, — ” much was comprised in 
that one word and Joe’s tone, “afterwards we 
started off together, my Dad and me. He said 
he’d try and get a job on some farm with me, 
but nobody wanted him this time of year, and 
with me too. And he said one morning he wished 
he didn’t have me bothering around. When I 
woke up on the freight yesterday morning, he 
wasn’t there. Guess he must have dropped off. 
Maybe he can get a job now.” 

So it slipped out, Joe’s personal history, and 
the girls wondered at his soldierly acceptance of 
life’s discipline. Only nine, but already he faced 
the world as his own master, fearless and opti- 
mistic. All through that first evening he sat in 
the kitchen on the cushioned wood box, playing 
tunes he had learned from his father. When 
Shad brought in his big armfuls of logs for the 
night, he executed a few dance figures on the 
kitchen floor and “allowed” before he got 
through J oe would be chief musician at the coun- 
try dances roundabout. 

After supper the girls drew up their chairs 
around the sitting room table as usual. Here 
every night the three younger ones prepared their 
lessons for the next day. Jean generally read 
or sat with her father awhile, but tonight she 


CHRISTMAS GUESTS 


39 


answered Bab Crane’s letter. It was read over 
twice, the letter that blended in so curiously with 
the coming of the cousins from Boston. 

Ever since Jean could remember she had 
drawn pictures. In her first primer, treasured 
with other relics of that far off time when she was 
six instead of seventeen, she had put dancey legs 
on the alphabet and drawn very fat young pigs 
with curly tails chasing each other around the 
margins of spellers. 

No one guessed how she loved certain paintings 
back at the old home in New York. They had 
seemed so real to her, the face of a Millet peasant 
lad crossing a stubble field at dawn; a Breton 
girl knitting as she walked homeward behind 
some straying sheep; one of Franz Hals’ Flemish 
lads, his chin pressed close to his violin, his deep 
eyes looking at you from under the brim of his 
hat, and Touchstone and Audrey wandering 
through the Forest of Arden. 

She had loved to read, as she grew older, of 
Giotto, the little Italian boy trying to mix colors 
from brick dust, or drawing with charcoal on the 
stones of the field where Cimabue the monk 
walked in meditation; of the world that was just 
full of romance, full of stories ages old and still 
full of vivid life. 


40 


JEAN OF GREENACRES 


Once she had read of Albrecht Durer, paint- 
ing his masterpieces while he starved. How the 
people told in whispers after his death that he 
had used his heart’s blood to mix with his won- 
derful pigments. Of course it was all only a 
story, but Jean remembered it. When she saw 
a picture that seemed to hold one and speak its 
message of beauty, she would say to herself, 

“There is Durer’s secret.” 

And some day, if she ever could put on canvas 
the dreams that came to her, she meant to use the 
same secret. 

“I think,” said Kit, yawning and stretching 
her arms out in a perfect ecstasy of relaxation 
after a bout with her Latin, “I do think Socrates 
was an old bore. Always mixing in and con- 
tradicting everybody and starting something. 
No wonder his wife was cranky.” 

“He died beautifully,” Helen mused. “Some- 
thing about a sunset and all his friends around 
him, and didn’t he owe somebody a chicken and 
tell his friends to pay for it?” 

“You’re sleepy. Go to bed, both of you,” 
Jean told them laughingly. “I’ll put out the 
light and fasten the doors.” 

She finished her letter alone. It was not easy 
to write it. Bab wanted her to come down for 


CHRISTMAS GUESTS 


41 


the spring term. She could board with her if 
she liked. Expenses were very light. 

Any expenses would be heavy if piled on the 
monthly budget of Greenacres. Jean knew that. 
So she wrote back with a heartache behind the 
plucky refusal, and stepped out on the moonlit 
veranda for a minute. It was clear and cold 
after the light snowfall. The stars were very 
faint. From the river came the sound of the 
waterfall, and up in the big white barn, Princess 
giving her stall a goodnight kick or two before 
settling down. 

“You stand steady, Jean Robbins,” she said, 
between her teeth. “Don’t you dare be a quitter. 
You stand steady and see this winter straight 
through.” 



EVERGREEN AND CANDLELIGHT 


I 


► 




* 
































CHAPTER III 


EVERGREEN AND CANDLELIGHT 

After her marriage to Judge Ellis, Cousin 
Roxy had taken Ella Lou from Maple Lawn 
over to the big white house behind its towering 
elms. 

“I’ve been driving her ten years and never saw 
a horse like her for knowingness and perspica- 
city,” she would say, her head held a little bit 
high, her spectacles half way down her nose. “I 
told the Judge if he wanted me he’d have to take 
Ella Lou too.” 

So it was Ella Lou’s familiar white nose that 
showed at the hitching post the following morn- 
ing when the Boston cousins came over to get 
acquainted. 

Jean never forgot her introduction to Beth 
Newell. She was about forty-seven then, with 
her son Elliott fully five inches taller than her- 
self, but she looked about twenty-seven. Her 
fluffy brown hair, her wide gray eyes, and quick 


46 


JEAN OF GREENACRES 


sweet laughter, endeared her to the girls right 
away. 

“And she’s so slim and dear,” Doris added. 
“Her dress makes me think of an oak leaf in 
winter, and she’s a lady of the meads.” 

Elliott was about fifteen, not one single bit 
like his mother, but broad-shouldered and blonde 
and sturdy. It was so much fun, Kit said, to 
watch him take care of his mother. 

“Where’s your High School out here?” he 
asked. “I’m at Prep, specializing in mathe- 
matics.” 

“And how any son of mine can adore mathe- 
matics is beyond me,” Cousin Beth laughed. “I 
suppose it’s reaction. Do you like them, Jean?” 
She put her arm around the slender figure nearest 
her. 

“Indeed, I don’t,” Jean answered fervently, 
and then all at once, out popped her heart’s de- 
sire before she could check the words. Any- 
body’s heart’s desire would pop out with Beth’s 
eyes coaxing it. “I — I want to be an artist.” 

“Keep on wishing and working then, dear, and 
as Roxy says, if it is to be it will be.” 

While the others talked of turning New Eng- 
land farms into haunts of ancient peace and 
beauty, these two sat together on the davenport, 


EVERGREEN 


47 


Jean listening eagerly and wistfully while her 
cousin told of her own girlhood aims and how she 
carried them out. 

“We didn’t have much money, so I knew I 
had to win out for myself. There were two little 
brothers to help bring up, and Mother was not 
strong, but I used to sketch every spare moment 
I could, and I read everything on art I could 
find, even articles from old magazines in the 
garret. But most of all I sketched anything and 
everything, studying form and composition. 
When I was eighteen, I taught school for two 
terms in the country. Father had said if I 
earned the money myself, I could go abroad, and 
how I worked to get that first nest egg.” 

“How much did you get a week?” 

“Twelve dollars, but my board was only three 
and a half in the country, and I saved all I could. 
During the summers I took lessons at Ellen 
Brainerd’s art classes in Boston and worked as a 
vacation substitute at the libraries. You know, 
Jean, if you really do want work and kind of 
hunt a groove you’re fitted for, you will always 
find something to do.” 

Jean was leaning forward, her chin propped 
on her hands. 

“Yes, I know,” she said. “Do go on, please.” 


48 


JEAN OF GREENACRES 


“Ellen Brainerd was one of New England’s 
glorious old maids with the far vision and cash 
enough to make a few of her dreams come true. 
Every year she used to lead a group of girl art 
students over Europe’s beauty spots, and with 
her encouragement I went the third year, help- 
ing her with a few of the younger ones, and pay- 
ing part of my tuition that way. And, my dear,” 
Cousin Beth clasped both hands around her knees 
and rocked back and forth happily, “we set up 
our easels in the fountain square in Barcelona 
and hunted Dante types in Florence. We 
trailed through Flanders and Holland and lived 
delightfully on the outskirts of Paris in a little 
gray house with a high stone wall and many 
flowers.” 

“And you painted all those places?” exclaimed 
Jean. “I’ve longed and longed to go there.” 

“Well, I tried to,” Cousin Beth looked ruefully 
at the fire. “Yes, I tried to paint like all the old 
masters and new masters. One month we took 
up this school and the next we delved into some- 
thing else, studying everything in the world but 
individual expression.” 

“That’s just what a girl friend of mine in New 
York wrote and said she was doing,” cried Jean, 
much interested. 


EVERGREEN 


49 


“Then she’s struck the keynote. After your 
second cousin David came over and stopped my 
career by marrying me I came back home. We 
lived out near Weston and I began painting 
things of everyday life just as I saw them, the 
things I loved. It was our old apple tree out 
by the well steeped in full May bloom that 
brought me my first medal.” 

“Oh, after Paris and all the rest!” 

“Yes, dear. And the next year they accepted 
our red barn in a snowstorm. I painted it from 
the kitchen window. Another was a water color 
of our Jersey calves standing knee deep in the 
brook in J une, and another was Brenda, the hired 
girl, feeding turkeys out in the mulberry lane. 
That is the kind of picture I have succeeded 
with. I think because, as I say, they are part of 
the home life and scenes I love best and So I have 
put a part of myself into them.” 

“Durer’s heart’s blood,” Jean said softly. 
“You’ve helped me so much, Cousin Beth. I 
was just hungry to go back to the art school 
right now, and throw up everything here that I 
ought to do.” 

“Keep on sketching every spare moment you 
can. Learn form and color and composition. 
Things are only beautiful according to the meas- 


50 


JEAN OF GREEJN ACRES 


ure of our own minds. And the first of March 
I want you to visit me. I’ve got a studio right 
out in my apple orchard I’ll tuck you away in.” 

“I’d love to come if Mother can spare me.” 
Jean’s eyes sparkled. 

“Well, do so, child,” Cousin Roxy’s hands were 
laid on her shoulders from behind. “I’m going 
up too along that time, and I’ll take you. It’s 
a poor family that can’t support one genius.” 
She laughed in her full hearted, joyous way. 
“Now, listen, all of you. I’ve come to invite you 
to have Christmas dinner with us.” 

“But, Cousin Roxy,” began Mrs. Robbins, 
“there are so many of us — ” 

“Not half enough to fill the big old house. 
Some day after all the girls and Billie are mar- 
ried and there are plenty of grandchildren, then 
we can talk about there being too many, though 
I doubt it. There’s always as much house room 
as there is heart room, you know, if you only 
think so. They’re going to have a little service 
for the children at the Center Church, Wednes- 
day night, and Shad had better drive the girls 
over. Bring along the little lad too.” She 
smiled over her shoulder at Joe, seated in his 
favorite corner on the woodbox reading one of 
Doris’s books, and he gave a funny little one- 


EVERGREEN 


51 


sided grin back in shy return. “Billie’s going 
away to school after New Year’s, did I tell you?” 

“Oh, dear me,” cried Kit, so spontaneously 
that everyone laughed at her. “Doesn’t it seem 
as if boys get all of the adventures of life just 
naturally.” 

“He’s had adventures enough, but he does 
need the companionship of boys his own size. 
Emerson says that the growing boy is the natural 
autocrat of creation, and I don’t want him to be 
tied down with a couple of old folks like the 
Judge and myself. You’re never young but 
once. Besides, I always did want to go to these 
football games at colleges and have a boy of mine 
in the mixup, bless his heart.” 

“My goodness!” Kit exclaimed after the front 
door had closed on the last glimpse of Ella Lou’s 
white feet going down the drive. “Doesn’t it 
seem as if Cousin Roxy leaves behind her a big 
sort of glow? She can say more nice things in a 
few minutes than anybody I ever heard. Ex- 
cept about Billie’s going away. I wonder why 
he didn’t come down and tell me himself.” 

“Well, you know, Kit,” Helen remarked, “you 
haven’t a mortgage on Billie.” 

“Oh, I don’t care if he goes away. It isn’t 
that,” Kit answered comfortably. “I wouldn’t 


52 


JEAN OF GREENACRES 


give a snap of my finger for a boy that couldn’t 
race with other fellows and win. J ean, fair sis- 
ter, did you realize the full significance of Cousin 
Roxy’s invitation? No baking or brewing, no 
hustling our fingers and toes off for dinner on 
Christmas Day. I think she’s a gorgeous old 
darling.” 

Jean laughed and slipped up the back stairs 
to her own room. It was too cold to stay there. 
A furnace was one of the luxuries planned for 
the following year, but during this first winter 
of campaigning, they had started out pluckily 
with the big steel range in the kitchen, the genial 
square wood heater in the sitting room and open 
fire places in the four large bedrooms and the 
parlor. 

“We’ll freeze before the winter’s over,” Kit 
had prophesied. “Now I know why Cotton 
Mather and all the other precious old first settlers 
of the New England Commonwealth looked 
as if their noses had been frost bitten. Sally 
Peckham leaves her window wide open every 
night, and says she often finds snow on her pil- 
low.” 

But already the girls were adapting themselves 
to the many ways of keeping warm up in the 
hills. On the back of the range at night were 


EVERGREEN 


53 


soapstones heating through, waiting to be 
wrapped in strips of flannel and trotted up to 
bed as foot warmers. 

Cousin Roxy had sent over several from her 
own store and told the girls if they ran short a 
flat iron or a good stick of hickory did almost as 
well. It was comical to watch their faces. If 
ever remembrance was written on a face it was 
on Helen’s the first time she took her soapstone 
to bed with her. Where were the hot water coils 
of yester year? Heat had seemed to come 
as if by magic at the big house at Shady 
Cove, but here it became a lazy giant you petted 
and cajoled and watched eternally to keep him 
from falling asleep. Kit had nicknamed the 
kitchen stove Matilda because it reminded her of 
a shiny black cook from Aiken, Georgia, whom 
the family had harbored once upon a time. 

“And feeding Matilda has become one of the 
things that is turning my auburn tinted locks a 
soft, delicate gray,” she told Helen. “I know if 
any catastrophe were to happen all at once, my 
passing words would be, ‘Put a stick of wood in 
the stove.’ ” 

Jean felt around in her desk until she found 
her folio of sketches. The sitting room was de- 
serted excepting for Helen watering the rows of 


54 


JEAN OF GREENACRES 


blooming geraniums on the little narrow shelves 
above the sash curtains. Cherilee, the canary, 
sang challengingly to the sunlight, and out in the 
dining room Doris was outmatching him with 
“Nancy Lee.” 

Helen went upstairs to her father, and Kit 
appeared with a frown on her face, puzzling over 
a pattern for filet lace. 

“I think the last days before Christmas are 
terrible,” she exclaimed savagely. “What on 
earth can we concoct at this last minute for Cousin 
Beth ? I think I’ll crochet her a filet breakfast 
cap. It’s always a race at the last minute to 
cover everybody, and you bite off more than you 
can chew and always forget someone you wouldn’t 
have neglected for anything. What on earth can 
I give to Judge Ellis ?” 

“Something useful,” Jean answered. 

“I can’t bear useful things for Christmas pres- 
ents. Abby Tucker says she never gets any win- 
ter clothes till Christmas and then all the family 
unload useful things on her. I’m going to send 
her a bottle of violet extract in a green leather 
case. I’ve had it for months and never touched 
it and she’ll adore it. I wish I could think of 
something for Billie too, something he’s never 
had and always wanted.” 


EVERGREEN 


55 


“He’s going away,” Jean mused. “Why 
don’t you fix up a book of snapshots taken all 
around here. We took some beauties this sum- 
mer.” 

“A boy wouldn’t like that.” 

“He will when he’s homesick.” Jean opened 
her folio and began turning over her art school 
studies. Mostly conventionalized designs they 
were. After her talk with Cousin Beth they only 
dissatisfied her. Suddenly she glanced up at the 
figure across the table, Kit with rumpled short 
curls and an utterly relaxed posture, elbows on 
table, knees on a chair. There was a time for 
all things, Kit held, even formality, but, as she 
loved to remark sententiously when Helen or 
Jean called her up for her lax ways, “A little 
laxity is permissible in the privacy of one’s own 
home.” 

Jean’s pencil began to move over the back of 
her drawing pad. Yes, she could catch it. It 
wasn’t so hard, the ruffled hair, the half averted 
face. Kit’s face was such an odd mixture of 
whimsicality and determination. The rough 
sketch grew and all at once Kit glanced up and 
caught what was going on. 

“Oh, it’s me, isn’t it, Jean? I wish you’d con- 
ventionalized me and embellished me. I’d like 


56 


JEAN OF GREENACRES 


to look like Mucha’s head of Bernhardt as 
Princess Lointaine. What shall we call this? 
‘Beauty Unadorned.’ No. Call it ‘Christmas 
Fantasies.’ That’s lovely, specially with the 
nose screwed up that way and my noble brow 
wrinkled. I like that. It’s so subtle. Anyone 
getting one good look at the helpless frenzy in 
that downcast gaze, those anguished, rumpled 
locks — ” 

“Oh, Kit, be good,” laughed Jean. She held 
the sketch away from her critically. “Looks 
just like you.” 

“All right. Hang it up as ‘Exhibit A’ of 
your new school of expression. I don’t mind. 
There’s a look of genius to it at that.” 

“One must idealize some,” Jean replied teas- 
ingly. She hung it on the door of the wall closet 
with a pin, just as Mrs. Robbins came into the 
room. 

“Mother dear, look what my elder sister has 
done to me,” Kit cried tragically. Jean said 
nothing, only the color rose slowly in her cheeks 
as her mother stood before the little sketch in 
silence, and slipped her hand into hers. 

“It’s the first since I left school,” she said, half 
ashamed of the effort and all it implied. “Kit 
looked too appealing. I had to catch her.” 


EVERGREEN 


57 


“Finish it up, girlie, and let me have it on the 
tree, may I?” There was a very tender note in 
the Motherbird’s voice, such an understanding 
note. 

“Oh, would you like it, really, Mother?” 

“Love it,” answered Mother promptly. “And 
don’t give up the ship, remember. Perhaps we 
may be able to squeeze in the spring term after 
all” 






THE JUDGE’S SWEETHEART 





















\ 


















CHAPTER IV 

THE JUDGE’S SWEETHEART 

It took both Ella Lou and Princess to 
transport the Christmas guests from Greenacres 
over to the Ellis place. Nobody ever called it 
anything but just that, the Ellis place, and some- 
times, “over to the Judge’s.” Cousin Roxy said 
she couldn’t bear to have a nameless home and 
just as soon as she could get around to it, she’d 
see that the Ellis place had a suitable name. 

It was one of the few pretentious houses in all 
three of the Gileads, Gilead Green, Gilead 
Centre, and Gilead Post Office. For seven gen- 
erations it had been in the Ellis family. The 
Judge had a ponderous volume bound in heavy 
red morocco, setting forth the history of Wind- 
ham County, and the girls loved to pore over it. 
Seven men with their families, bound westward 
towards Hartford in the colonial days of seeking 
after home sites, had seen the fertile valley with 
its encircling hills, and had settled there. One 
was an Ellis and the Judge had his sword and 


62 


JEAN OF GREENACRES 


periwig in his library. As for the rest, all one 
had to do was go over to the old family burial 
ground on the wood road and count them up. 

During the fall, this had been a favorite tramp 
of the Greenacre hikers, and Jean loved to quote 
a bit from Stevenson, once they had come in sight 
of the old grass grown enclosure, cedar shaded, 
secluded and restful: 

“There is a certain frame of mind to which a 
cemetery is if not an antidote, at least an allevia- 
tion. If you are in a fit of the blues, go nowhere 
else.” 

Here they found the last abiding place of old 
Captain Ephraim Ellis with his two wives, 
Lovina Mary and Hephzibah Waiting, one on 
each side of him. The Captain rested betwixt 
the two myrtle covered mounds and each old 
slate gravestone leaned towards his. 

“Far be it from me,” Cousin Roxy would say 
heartily, “to speak lightly of those gone before, 
but those two headstones tell their own story, 
and I’ll bet a cookie the Captain could tell his 
if he got a chance.” 

Every Legislature convening at Hartford 
since the olden days, had known an Ellis from 
Gilead. Only two of the family had taken to 
wandering, Billie’s father and Gideon, one of the 


THE JUDGE’S SWEETHEART 63 


old Captain’s sons. The girls wove many tales 
around Gideon. He must have had the real 
Argonaut spirit. Back in the first days of the 
Revolution he had run away from the valley 
home and ended up with Paul Jones on the 
“Bonhomme Richard.” 

Billie loved his memory, the same as he did his 
own father’s, and the girls had straightened up 
his sunken slatestone record, and had planted 
some flowers, not white ones, but bravely tinted 
asters for late fall. Billie showed them an old 
silhouette he had found. Mounted on black silk, 
the old faded brown paper showed a boy with 
sensitive mouth and eager lifted chin, queer high 
choker collar and black stock. On the back of 
the wooden frame was written in a small, firm 
handwriting, “My beloved son Gideon, aged 
nineteen.” 

The old house sat far back from the road with 
a double drive curving like a big “U” around it. 
Huge elms upreared their great boughs protect- 
ingly before it, and behind lay a succession of all 
manner and kind of buildings from the old forge 
to the smoke house. One barn stood across the 
road and another at the top of the lane for hay. 
Since Cousin Roxy had married the Judge, it 
seemed as if the sunlight had flooded the old 


64 


JEAN OF GREENACRES 


house. Its shuttered windows had faced the 
road for years, but now the green blinds were 
wide open, and it seemed as if the house almost 
smiled at the world again. 

“I never could see a mite of sense in keeping 
blinds shut as if somebody were dead,” Cousin 
Roxy would say. “Some folks won’t even open 
the blinds in their hearts, let alone their houses, 
so I told the Judge if he wanted me for a com- 
panion, he’d have to take in God’s sunshine too, 
’cause I can’t live without plenty of it.” 

Kit and Doris were the first to run up the steps 
and into the center hall, almost bumping into 
Billie as he ran to meet them. Behind him came 
Mrs. Ellis in a soft gray silk dress. A lace 
collar encircled her throat, fastened with an old 
pink cameo breastpin. Helen had always 
coveted that pin. There was a young damsel 
on it holding up her full skirts daintily as she 
moved towards a sort of chapel, and it was set in 
fine, thin old gold. 

“Come right in, folkses,” she called happily. 
“Do stop capering,” as Doris danced around her. 
“Merry Christmas, all of you.” 

Up the long colonial staircase she led the way 
into the big guest room. Down in the parlor 
Cousin Beth was playing softly on the old me- 


THE JUDGE’S SWEETHEART 65 


lodeon, “It came upon the midnight clear, that 
glorious song of old.” The air was filled with 
scent of pine and hemlock, and provocative 
odors of things cooking stole up the back stairs. 

Kit and Billie retreated to a corner with the 
latter’s book supply. It was hard to realize that 
this was really Billie, Cousin Roxy’s “Nature 
Boy” of the summer before. Love and en- 
couragement had seemed to round out his charac- 
ter into a promise of fulfilment in manliness. 
All of the old self consciousness and shy ab- 
straction had gone. Even the easy comradely 
manner in which he leaned over the Judge’s arm 
chair showed the good understanding and sure 
confidence between the two. 

“Yes, he does show up real proud,” Cousin 
Roxy agreed warmly with Mrs. Robbins when 
they were all downstairs before the glowing fire. 
“Of course I let him call me Grandma. Pity 
sakes, that’s little enough to a love starved child. 
I’m proud of him too and so’s the Judge. We’re 
going to miss him when he goes away to school, 
but he’s getting along splendidly. I want him 
to go where he’ll have plenty of boy companion- 
ship. He’s lived alone with the ants and bees 
and rabbits long enough.” 

Helen and Doris leaned over Cousin Beth’s 


66 


JEAN OF GREENACRES 


shoulders trying the old carols: “Good King 
Wencelas,” “Carol, Brothers, Carol,” and “While 
Shepherds Watched Their Flocks By Night.” 
Jean played for them and just before dinner was 
announced, Doris sang all alone in her soft 
treble, very earnestly and tenderly, quite as if 
she saw past the walls of the quiet New England 
homestead to where “Calm Judea stretches far 
her silver mantled plains.” 

Cousin Roxy rocked back and forth softly, 
her hand shading her eyes as it did in prayer. 
When it was over, she said briskly, wiping off 
her spectacles, 

“Land, I’m not a bit emotional, but that sort 
of sets my heart strings tingling. Let’s go to 
dinner, folkses. The Judge takes Betty in, and 
Jerry takes Beth. Then Elliott can take in his 
old Cousin Roxy, and I guess Billie can manage 
all of the girls.” 

But the girls laughingly went their own way, 
Doris holding to the Judge’s other arm and 
Helen to her father’s, while Jean lingered behind 
a minute to glance about the cheery room. The 
fire crackled down in the deep old rock hearth. 
In each of the windows hung a mountain laurel 
wreath tied with red satin ribbon. Festoons of 
ground pine and evergreen draped each door and 


THE JUDGE’S SWEETHEART 67 


picture. It was all so homelike, Jean thought. 
Over the mantel hung a motto worked in colored 
worsteds on perforated silver board. 


Here abideth peace 


But Jean turned away, and pressed her face 
against the nearest window pane, looking down 
at the sombre, frost-touched garden. There 
wasn’t one bit of peace in her heart, even while 
she fairly ached with the longing to be like the 
others. 

“You’re a coward, Jean Robbins, a deliberate 
coward,” she told herself. “You don’t like the 
country one bit. You love the city where every- 
body’s doing something, and it’s just a big race 
for all. You’re longing for everything you 
can’t have, and you’re afraid to face the winter 
up here. You might just as well tell yourself 
the truth. You hate to be poor.” 

There came a burst of laughter from the din- 
ing-room and Kit calling to her to hurry up. It 
appeared that Doris, the tender-hearted, had 
said pathetically when Mrs. Gorham, the “help,” 
brought in the great roast turkey: “Poor old 
General Putnam!” 

“That isn’t the General,” Billie called from 


68 


JEAN OF GREENACRES 


his place. “The General ran away yesterday.’" 

Now if Cousin Roxy prided herself on one 
thing more than another it was her flock of white 
turkeys led by the doughty General. All sum- 
mer long the girls had looked upon him as a de- 
finite personality to be reckoned with. He was 
patriarchal in the way he managed his family. 
And it appeared that the General’s astuteness 
and sagacity had not deserted him when Ben had 
started after him to turn him into a savory sacri- 
fice. 

“First off, he lit up in the apple trees,” Ben 
explained. “Then as soon as he saw I was high 
enough, off he flopped and made for the corn- 
crib. Just as I caught up with him there, he 
chose the wagon sheds and perched on the rafters, 
and when I’d almost got hold of his tail feathers, 
if he didn’t try the barn and all his wives and 
descendants after him, mind you. So I thought 
I’d let him roost till dark, and when I stole in 
after supper, the old codger had gone, bag and 
baggage. He’ll come back as soon as he knows 
our minds ain’t set on wishbones.” 

“Then who is this?” asked Kit interestedly, 
quite as if it were some personage who rested on 
the big willow pattern platter in state. 

“That is some unnamed patriot who dies for 


THE JUDGE’S SWEETHEART 69 


his country’s good,” said the Judge, solemnly. 
“Who says whitemeat and who says dark?” 

Jean was watching her father. Not since 
they had moved into the country had she seen 
him so cheerful and like himself. The Judge’s 
geniality was like a radiating glow, anyway, that 
included all in its circle, and Cousin Roxy was 
in her element, dishing out plenteous platefuls of 
Christmas dainties to all those nearest and 
dearest to her. Way down at the end of the 
table sat Joe, wide eyed and silent tongued. 
Christmas had never been like this that he knew 
of. Billie tried to engage him in conversation, 
boy fashion, a few times, but gave up the at- 
tempt. By the time he had finished his helping, 
Joe was far too full for utterance. 

In the back of the carriage, driving over from 
Greenacres, Mrs. Robbins had placed a big 
bushel basket, and into this had gone the gifts to 
be hung on the tree. After dinner, while the 
Judge and Mr. Robbins smoked before the fire, 
and Kit led the merry-making out in the sitting 
room, there were mysterious “goings on” in the 
big front parlor. Finally Cousin Beth came 
softly out, and turned down all the lights. 

Jean slipped over to the organ, and as the tall 
old doors were opened wide, she played softly. 


70 JEAN OF GREENACRES 


“Gather around the Christmas tree.” 

Doris picked up the melody and led, sitting on 
a hassock near the doors, gazing with all her eyes 
up at the beautiful spreading hemlock, laden 
with lights and gifts. 

“For pity’s sake, child, what are you crying 
about?” exclaimed Cousin Roxy, almost stum- 
bling over a little crumpled figure in a dark cor- 
ner, and Joe sobbed sleepily: 

“I— I don’t know.” 

“Oh, it’s just the heartache and the beauty of 
it all,” said Helen fervently. “He’s lonely for 
his own folks.” 

“ ’Tain’t neither,” groaned Joe. “It’s too 
much mince pie.” 

So under Cousin Roxy’s directions, Billie took 
him up to his room, and administered “good hot 
water and sody.” 

“Too bad, ’cause he missed seeing all the 
things taken off the tree,” said Cousin Roxy, 
laying aside J oe’s presents for him, a long warm 
knit muffler from herself, a fine jack-knife from 
the Judge with a pocket chain on it, a pack- 
age of Billie’s boy books that he had outgrown, 
and ice skates from the Greenacre girls. After 
much figuring over the balance left from their 
Christmas money they had clubbed together on 


THE JUDGE’S SWEETHEART 71 


the skates for him, knowing he would have more 
fun and exercise out of them than anything, and 
he needed something to bring back the sparkle 
to his eyes and the color to his cheeks. 

“Put them all up on the bed beside him, and 
he’ll find them in the morning,” Billie suggested. 
“If you’ll let him stay, Mrs. Robbins, I’ll bring 
him over.” 

“Isn’t it queer,” Doris said, with a sigh of 
deepest satisfaction, as she watched the others 
untying their packages. “It isn’t so much what 
you get yourself Christmas, it’s seeing every- 
body else get theirs.” And just then a wide, 
flat parcel landed squarely in her lap, and she 
gave a surprised gasp. 

“The fur mitten isn’t there, but you can 
snuggle your nose on the muff,” Jean told her, 
and Doris held up just what she had been long- 
ing for, a squirrel muff and stole to throw 
around her neck. “They’re not neighborhood 
squirrels, are they, Billie?” she whispered anx- 
iously, and Billie assured her they were Russian 
squirrels, and no families’ trees around Gilead 
were wearing mourning. 

Nearly all of Billie’s presents were books. 
He had reached the age where books were like 
magical windows through which he gazed from 


72 


JEAN OF GREENACRES 


Boyhood’s tower out over the whole wide world 
of romance and adventure. Up in his room 
were all of the things he had treasured in his 
lonesome days before the Judge had married 
Miss Robbins: his homemade fishing tackle, his 
collection of butterflies and insects, his first 
compass and magnifying glass, the flower 
calendar and leaf collection, where he had ar- 
ranged so carefully every different leaf and 
blossom in its season. 

But now, someway, with the library of books 
the Judge had given him, that had been his own 
father’s, Gilead borders had widened out, and he 
had found himself a knight errant on the world’s 
highway of literature. He sat on the couch now, 
burrowing into each new book until Kit sat down 
beside him, with a new kodak in one hand and a 
pair of pink knit bed slippers in the other. 

“And mother’s given me the picture I like 
best, her Joan of Arc listening to the voices in 
the garden at Arles. I love that, Billie. I’m 
not artistic like Jean or romantic like Helen. 
You know that, don’t you?” 

Billie nodded emphatically. Indeed he did 
know it after half a year of chumming with Kit. 

“But I love the pluck of Joan,” Kit sighed, 
lips pursed, head up. “I’d have made a glorious 


THE JUDGE’S SWEETHEART 73 


martyr, do you know it? I know she must have 
enjoyed the whole thing immensely, even if it 
did end at the stake. I think it must be ever so 
much easier to be a martyr than look after the 
seventeen hundred horrid little everyday things 
that just have to be done. When it’s time to get 
up now at 6 a. m. and no fires going, I 
shall look up at Joan and register courage and 
yalor.” 

Helen sat close to her father, perfectly happy 
to listen and gaze at the flickering lights on the 
big tree. She had gift books too, mostly fairy 
tales and what Doris called “princess stories,” 
a pink tinted ivory manicure set in a little velvet 
box, and two cut glass candlesticks with little 
pink silk shades. The candlesticks had been 
part of the “white hyacinths” saved from the 
sale at their Long Island home, and Jean had 
made the shades and painted them with sprays 
of forget-me-nots. Cousin Roxy had knit the 
prettiest skating caps for each of the girls, and 
scarfs to match, and Mrs. Newell gave them old 
silver spoons that had been part of their great 
great-grandmother Peabody’s wedding outfit, 
and to each one two homespun linen sheets from 
the same precious store of treasures. 

“When you come to Weston,” she told Jean, 


74 


JEAN OF GREENACRES 


“I’ll show you many of her things. She was 
my great grandmother, you know, and I can 
just vaguely remember her sitting upstairs in 
her room in a deep-seated winged arm-chair that 
had pockets and receptacles all around it. I 
know I looked on her with a great deal of wonder 
and veneration, for I was just six. She wore 
gray alpaca, Jean, silver gray like her hair, and 
a little black silk apron with dried flag root in 
one pocket and pink and white peppermints in 
the other.” 

“And a cap,” added Jean, just as if she too 
could recall the picture. 

“A cap of fine black lace with lavendar bows, 
and her name was Mary Lavinia Peabody.” 

“I’d love to be named Mary Lavinia,” quoth 
Kit over her shoulder. “How can anybody be 
staid and faithful unto death with ‘Kit’ hurled 
at them all day. But if I had been rightly called 
Mary Lavinia, oh, Cousin Beth, I’d have been a 
darling.” 

“I don’t doubt it one bit,” laughed Cousin 
Beth merrily. “Go along with you, Kit. It 
just suits you.” 

Doris sat on her favorite hassock clasping a 
new baby doll in her arms with an expression of 
utter contentment on her face. Kit and Jean 


THE JUDGE’S SWEETHEART 75 


had dressed it in the evenings after she had gone 
to bed, and it had a complete layette. But 
Billie had given her his tame crow, Moki, and 
her responsibility was divided. 

“Where’d you get the name from, Billie?” she 
asked. 

Billie stroked the smooth glossy back of the 
crow as one might a pet chicken. 

“I found him one day over in the pine woods 
on the hill. He was just a little fellow then. 
The nest was in a dead pine, and somebody ’d shot 
it all to pieces. The rest of the family had gone, 
but I found him fluttering around on the ground, 
scared to death with a broken wing. Ben 
helped me fix it, and he told me to call him Moki. 
You know he’s read everything, and he can talk 
some Indian, Pequod mostly, he says. He isn’t 
sure but what there may be some Pequod in him 
way back, he can talk it so well, and Moki means 
‘Watch out’ in Pequod, Ben says. I call him 
that because I used to put him on my shoulder 
and he’d go anywhere with me through the 
woods, and call out when he thought I was in 
danger.” 

“How do you know what he thought?” 

“After you get acquainted with him, you’ll 
know what he thinks too,” answered Billie 


76 


JEAN OF GREENACRES 


soberly. “Hush, grandfather’s going to say 
something.” 

The Judge rose and stood on the hearth rug, 
his back to the fire. He was nearly six feet tall, 
soldierly, and rugged, his white curly hair stand- 
ing out in three distinct tufts just like Pantaloon, 
Kit always declared, his eyes keen and bright 
under their thick brows. He had taken off his 
eyeglasses and held them in one hand, tapping 
them on the other to emphasize his words. 
Jean tiptoed around the tree, extinguishing the 
last sputtering candles, and sat down softly be- 
side Cousin Roxy. 

“I don’t think any of you, beloved children 
and dear ones, can quite understand what to- 
night means to me personally.” He cleared his 
throat and looked over at Billie. “I haven’t had 
a real Christmas here since Billie’s father was a 
little boy. I didn’t want a real Christmas either. 
Christmas meant no more to me than to some 
old owl up in the woods, maybe not as much. 
But tonight has warmed my heart, built up a 
good old fire in it just as you start one going in 
some old disused rock fireplace that has been 
stone cold for years. 

“When I was a boy this old house used to be 
opened up as it is tonight, decorated with ever- 


THE JUDGE’S SWEETHEART 77 


green and hemlock and guests in every room at 
Christmas time. I didn’t live here then. My 
grandfather, old Judge Winthrop Ellis, was 
alive, and my father had married and moved 
over to the white house on the wood road be- 
tween Maple Lawn and the old burial ground. 
You can still find the cellar of it and the old rock 
chimney standing. I used to trot along that 
wood road to school up at Gayhead where Doris 
and Helen have been going, and I had just one 
companion on that road, the perkiest, sassiest, 
most interesting female I ever met in all my 
life.” He stopped and chuckled, and Cousin 
Roxy rubbed her nose with her forefinger and 
smiled. 

“We knew every spot along the way, where 
the fringed gentians grew in the late fall, and 
where to find arbutus in the spring. The best 
place to get black birch and where the checker- 
berries were thickest. Maybe just now, it won’t 
mean so much to you young folks, all these little 
landmarks of nature on these old home roads 
and fields of ours, but when the shadows begin 
to lengthen in life’s afternoon, you’ll be glad to 
remember them and maybe find them again, for 
the best part of it all is, they wait for you with 
love and welcome and you’ll find the gentians 


78 


JEAN OF GREENACRES 


and the checker-berries growing in just the same 
places they did fifty years ago.” 

Jean saw her father put out his hand and lay 
it over her mother’s. His head was bent for- 
ward a trifle and there was a wonderful light in 
his eyes. 

“And all I wanted to say, apart from the big 
welcome to you all, and the good wishes for a 
joyous season, was this, the greatest blessing life 
has brought me is that Roxana has come out of 
the past to sit right over there and show me how 
to have a good time at Christmas once again. 
God bless you all.” 

“Oh, wasn’t he just a dear,” Kit said, raptur- 
ously, when it was all over, and they were driv- 
ing back home under the clear starlit sky. “I 
do hope when I’m as old as the Judge, I’ll have 
a flower of romance to sniff at too. Cousin 
Roxy watched him just as if he were sixteen in- 
stead of sixty.” 

“You’re just as sentimental as Helen and 
me,” Jean told her, teasingly. 

“Well, anybody who wouldn’t get a thrill out 
of tonight would be a toad in a claybank. And 
Jean, did you see Father’s face?” 

Jean nodded. It was something not to be 
discussed, the light in her father’s face as he had 


THE JUDGE’S SWEETHEART 79 


listened. It made her realize more than any- 
thing that had happened in the long months of 
trial in the country, how worth while it was, the 
sacrifice that had brought him back into his home 
country for healing and happiness. 




* 





JUST A CITY sparrow; 























































CHAPTER V 


JUST A CITY SPARROW 

Christmas week had already passed when the 
surprise came. As Kit said the charm of the 
unexpected was always gripping you unawares 
when you lived on the edge of Nowhere. Mrs. 
Newell and Elliott had departed two days after 
Christmas for Weston. Somehow the girls 
could not get really acquainted with this new 
boy cousin. Billie, once won, was a friend for 
ever, but Elliott was a smiling, confident boy, 
quiet and resourceful, with little to say. 

“He overlooks girls,” Helen had said. “It 
isn’t that he doesn’t like us, but he doesn’t see 
us. He’s been going to a boys’ school ever since 
he was seven years old, and all he can think 
about or talk about is boys. When I told him 
I didn’t know anything about baseball, he looked 
at me through his eye glasses so curiously.” 

“I think he was embarrassed by such a galaxy 
of the fair cousins,” Kit declared. “He’s lived 
alone as the sole chick, and he just couldn’t get 


84 


JEAN OF GREENACRES 


the right angle on us. Billie says he got along 
with him all right. He was very polite, girls, 
anyway. You expect too much of him because 
Cousin Beth was so nice. If he’d been named 
Bob or Dave or Billie or Jack, he’d have felt 
different too. His full name’s Elliott Peabody 
Newell. I’ll bet a cookie when I have a large 
family, I’ll never, never give them family 
names.” 

“You said you were going to be a bachelor 
maid forever just the other day.” 

“Did I? Well, you know about consistency 
being the hobgoblin of little minds,” Kit re- 
torted calmly. “Since we were over at the 
Judge’s for Christmas, I’ve decided to marry 
my childhood love too.” 

“That’s Billie.” 

“No, it is not, young lady. Billie is a kindred 
spirit, an entirely different person from your 
childhood love. I haven’t got one yet, but after 
listening to the Judge say those tender things 
about Cousin Roxy, I’m going to find one or 
know the reason why.” 

By this time, Jean had settled down content- 
edly to the winter regime. She was giving Doris 
piano lessons, and taking over the extra house- 


JUST A CITY SPARROW 


85 


hold duties with Kit back at school. School had 
been one of the problems to be solved that first 
year. Doris and Helen went over the hill road 
to Gayhead District Schoolhouse. It stood at 
the crossroads, a one story red frame building, 
with a “leanto” on one side, and a woodshed on 
the other. Helen had despised it thoroughly 
until she heard that her father had gone there 
in his boyhood, and she had found his old desk 
with his initials carved on it. Anything that 
Father or Mother had been associated with was 
forever hallowed in the eyes of the girls. 

But Kit was in High School, and the nearest 
one was over the hills to Central Village, six 
miles away. As Kit said, it was so tantalizing 
to get to the top of the first hill and see the square 
white bell tower rising out of the green trees way 
off on another hill and not be able to fly across. 
But Piney was going and she rode horseback on 
Mollie, the brown mare. 

“And if Piney Hancock can do it, I can,” Kit 
said. “I shall ride Princess over and back. 
Piney says she’ll meet me down at the bridge 
crossing every morning. It will be lots of fun, 
and she knows where we can put the horses up. 
All you do is take your own bag of grain with 


86 


JEAN OF GREENACRES 


you, and it only costs ten cents to stable them.” 

“But, dear, in heavy winter weather what will 
you do?” 

“Piney says if it’s too rough to get home, she 
stays overnight with Mrs. Parmalee. You re- 
member, Mother dear, Ma Parmalee from 
whom we bought the chickens. I could stay too. 
Cousin Roxy says you mustn’t just make a virtue 
of Necessity, sometimes you have to take her 
into the bosom of the family.” 

Accordingly, Kit rode in good weather, a trim, 
lithe figure in her brown corduroy cross saddle 
skirt, pongee silk waist, and brown tie. After 
she reached Central Village, and Princess was 
stabled, she could button up her skirt and feel 
just as properly garbed as any of the girls. And 
the ride over the rounded hills in the late fall 
months was a wonderful tonic. Mrs. Robbins 
would often stand out on the wide porch of an 
early morning and watch the setting forth of her 
brood, Helen and Doris turning to wave back 
to her at the entrance gates, Kit swinging her 
last salute at the turn of the hill road, where 
Princess got her first wind after her starting 
gallop. 

“I think they’re wonderfully plucky,” she said 
one morning to Jean. “If they had been coun- 


JUST A CITY SPARROW 


87 


try girls, born and bred, it would be different, 
but stepping right out of Long Island shore 
life into these hills, you have all managed 
splendidly.” 

“We’d have been a fine lot of quitters if we 
hadn’t,” Jean answered. “I think it’s been 
much harder for you than for us girls, Mother 
darling.” 

And then the oddest, most unexpected thing 
had happened, something that had strengthened 
the bond between them and made Jean’s way 
easier. The Motherbird had turned, with a cer- 
tain quick grace she had, seemingly as girlish and 
impulsive as any of her daughters, and had met 
Jean’s glance with a tell-tale flush on her cheeks 
and a certain whimsical glint in her eyes. 

“Jean, do you never suspect me?” she had 
asked, half laughingly. “I know just exactly 
what a struggle you have gone through, and how 
you miss all that lies back yonder. I do too. If 
we could just divide up the time, and live part 
of the year here and the other part back at the 
Cove. I wouldn’t dare tell Cousin Roxy that I 
had ever ‘repined’ as she would say, but there are 
days when the silence and the loneliness up here 
seem to crush so strongly in on one.” 

“Oh, Mother! I never thought that you 


88 


JEAN OF GREENACRES 


minded it.” Jean’s arms were around her in a 
moment. “I’ve been horribly selfish, just think- 
ing of myself. But now that Father’s getting 
strong again, you can go away, can’t you, for a 
little visit anyway?” 

“Not without him,” she said decidedly. “Per- 
haps by next summer we can, I don’t know. I 
don’t want to suggest it until he feels the need 
of a change too. But I’ve been thinking about 
you, Jean, and if Babbie writes again for you to 
come, I want you to go for a week or two any- 
way. I’ll get Shad’s sister to help me with the 
housework, and you must go. Beth and I had 
a talk together before she left, and I felt proud 
of my first nestling’s ambitions after I heard her 
speak of your work. She says the greatest 
worry on her mind is that Elliott has no definite 
ambition, no aim. He has always had every- 
thing that they could give him, and she begins 
now to realize it was all wrong. He expects 
everything to come to him without any effort of 
his own.” 

“But, Mother, how can I go and leave you — ” 

“I want you to, Jean. You have been a great 
help to me. Don’t think I haven’t noticed every- 
thing you have done to save me worry, because 
I have.” 


JUST A CITY SPARROW 


89 


“Well, you had Father to care for — ” 

“I know, and he’s so much better now that I 
haven’t any dread left. If Babbie writes again 
tell her you will come.” 

Babbie wrote after receiving her Christmas 
box of woodland things. Jean had arranged it 
herself, not thinking it was bearing a message. 
It was lined with birch bark, and covered with 
the same. Inside, packed in moss, were hardy 
little winter ferns, sprays of red berries, a wind 
tossed bluebird’s nest, acorns and rose seed pods, 
and twined around the edge wild blackberry 
vines that turn a deep ruby red in wintertime. 
J ean called it a winter garden and it was one of 
several she had sent out to city friends for whom 
she felt she could not afford expensive presents. 

Babbie had caught the real spirit of it, and 
had written back urgently. 

“You must run down if only for a few days, 
Jean. I’ve put your winter garden on the studio 
windowsill in the sunlight, and it just talks at 
me about you all the time. Never mind about 
new clothes. Come along.” 

It was these same new clothes that secretly 
worried Jean all the same, but with some fresh 
touches on two of last year’s evening frocks, her 
winter suit sponged and pressed, and her mother’s 


90 


JEAN OF GREENACRES 


set of white fox furs, she felt she could make the 
trip. 

“You can wear that art smock in the studio 
that Bab sent you for Christmas,” Kit told her. 
“That funny dull mustard yellow with the Dutch 
blue embroidery just suits you. But do your 
hair differently, Jean. It’s too stiff that way. 
Fluff it.” 

“Don’t you do it, Jean,” Helen advised. 
“Just because Kit has a flyaway mop, she 
doesn’t want us to wear braids. I shall wear 
braids some day if my hair ever gets long enough. 
I love yours all around your head like that. It 
looks like a crown.” 

“Stuff!” laughed Kit, merrily. “Sit thee 
down, my sister, and let me turn thee into a radi- 
ant beauty.” 

Laughingly, Jean was taken away from her 
sewing and planted before the oval mirror. The 
smooth brown plaits were taken down and Kit 
deftly brushed her hair high on her head, rolled 
it, patted it, put in big shell pins, and fluffed out 
the sides around the ears. 

“Now you look like Mary Lavinia Peabody 
and Dolly Madison and the Countess Potocka.” 

“Do I?” Jean surveyed herself dubiously. 
“Well, I like the braids best, and I’d never get 


JUST A CITY SPARROW 


91 


it up like that by myself. I shall be individual 
and not a slave to any mode. You know what 
Hiram used to say about his plaid necktie, ‘Them 
as don’t like it can lump it for all of me.’ ” 

The second week in January Shad drove Prin- 
cess down to the station with Jean and her two 
suitcases tucked away on the back seat. Mr. 
Briggs glanced up in bold surprise when her face 
appeared at the ticket window. 

“Ain’t leaving us, be you?” 

“Just for a week or two. New York, please.” 

“New York? Well, well.” He turned and 
fished leisurely for a ticket from the little rack 
on the side wall. “Figuring on visiting friends 
or maybe relatives, I shouldn’t wonder?” 

“A girl friend.” Jean couldn’t bear to side- 
step Mr. Briggs’s friendly interest in the com- 
ings and goings of the Robbins family. “Miss 
Crane.” 

“Oh, yes, Miss Crane. Same one you sent 
down that box to by express before Christmas. 
Did she get it all right?” 

“Yes, thanks.” 

“I kind of wondered what was in it. Nothing 
that rattled, and it didn’t feel heavy.” He 
looked out at her meditatively, but just then the 
train came along and Jean had to hurry away 


92 


JEAN OF GREENACRES 


without appeasing Mr. Briggs’s thirst for in- 
formation. 

It was strange, the sensation of adventure that 
came over her as the little two coach local train 
wound its way around the hills down towards 
New London. The unexpected, as she had said 
once, always brought the greatest thrill, and she 
had put from her absolutely any hope of a trip 
away from home so that now it came as a double 
pleasure. 

It was late afternoon and the sunshine lay in a 
hazy glow of red and gold over the russet fields. 
There was no sign of snow yet. The land lay 
in a sort of sleepy stillness, without wind or sound 
of birds, waiting for the real winter. On the 
hillsides the laurel bushes kept their deep green 
lustre, the winter ferns reared brave fresh tinted 
fronds above the dry leaf mold. On withered 
goldenrod stalks tiny brown Phoebe birds clung, 
hunting for stray seed pods. Here and there 
rose leisurely from a pine grove a line of crows, 
flying low over the bare fields. 

The train followed the river bank all the way 
down to New London. Jean loved to watch the 
scenery as it flashed around the bends, past the 
great water lily ponds below Jewett City, past 
the tumbling falls above the mills, over a bridge 


JUST A CITY SPARROW 


93 


so narrow that it seemed made of pontoons, 
through beautiful old Norwich, sitting like Rome 
of old on her seven hills, the very “Rose of New 
England.” Then down again to catch the broad 
sweep of the Thames River, ever widening until 
at last it spread out below the Navy Yard and 
slipped away to join the blue waters of the 
Sound. 

It was all familiar and common enough 
through custom and long knowledge to the people 
born and bred there. Jean thought an outsider 
caught the perspective better. And how many 
of the old English names had been given in loving 
remembrance of the Mother country, New Lon- 
don and Norwich, Hanover, Scotland, Canter- 
bury, Windham, and oddly enough, wedged in 
among the little French Canadian settlements 
around Nantic was Versailles. How on earth, 
Jean wondered, among those staid Non-Con- 
formist villages and towns, had Marie An- 
toinette’s toy palace ever slipped in for remem- 
brance. 

At New London she had to change from the 
local train to the Boston express. It was eleven 
before she reached the Grand Central at New 
York and found Bab waiting for her. Jean saw 
her as she came up the Concourse, a slim figure 


94 


JEAN OF GREENACRES 


in gray, her fluffy blonde hair curling from under 
her gray velvet Tam, just as Kit had coaxed 
Jean’s to do. Beside her was Mrs. Crane, a 
little motherly woman, plump and cheerful, who 
always reminded Jean of a hen that had just 
hatched a duck’s egg and was trying to make the 
best of it. 

“What a wonderful color you have, child,” she 
said, kissing Jean’s rosy cheeks. “She looks a 
hundred per cent better, doesn’t she, Bab, since 
she left Shady Cove.” 

“Fine,” Babbie declared. “Give the porter 
your suitcases, Kit. We’ve got a taxi waiting 
over here.” 

It was very nearly a year since Jean had 
left the New York atmosphere. Now the rush 
and hurly burly of people and vehicles almost be- 
wildered her. After months of the silent nights 
in the country, the noise and flashing lights 
rattled her, as Kit would have expressed it. She 
kept close to Mrs. Crane, and settled back finally 
in the taxi with relief, as they started uptown for 
the studio. 

“Yet you can hardly call it a studio now, 
since Mother came and took possession,” Bab 
said. “We girls had it all nice and messy, and 
she keeps it in order, I tell you. But you’ll like 


JUST A CITY SPARROW 


95 


it, and it’s close to the Park so we can get out 
for some good hikes.” 

“Somebody was needed to keep it in order,” 
Mrs. Crane put in. “You know, Jean, I had to 
stay over in Paris until things were a little bit 
settled. We had a lease on the apartment there, 
and of course, they held me to it, so I let Bab 
come back with the Setons as she had to be in 
time for her fall term at the Academy.” 

“Noodles and Justine and I kept house,” Bab 
put in significantly. “And, my dear, talk about 
temperament! We had no regular meals at all, 
and Justine says if you show her crackers and 
pimento cheese again for a year, she’ll just simply 
die in her tracks. Mother has fed us up beau- 
tifully since she came. Real substantial food, 
you know, fixed up differently. Mother fashion.” 

“Yes, and they didn’t think they needed me at 
all, Jean. Somehow a mother doesn’t go with 
a studio equipment, but this one does, and now 
everyone in the building troops down to visit us. 
They all need mothering now.” 

It was one of the smaller brick buildings off 
Sixth Avenue on Fifty-Seventh Street. There 
had been a garage on the first floor, but Vatelli, 
the sculptor, had turned it into a work room with 
a wife and three little Vatellis to make it cosy. 


96 


JEAN OF GREENACRES 


The second floor was the Cranes’ apartment, one 
very large room and two small ones. The two 
floors above were divided into one- and two-room 
studios. It looked very unpretentious from the 
outside, but within everything was delightfully 
attractive. The ceiling was beamed in dark oak, 
and a wide fireplace with a crackling wood fire 
made Jean almost feel as if she were back home. 
There were wide Dutch shelves around the room 
and cushioned seats along the walls. An old 
fashioned three-cornered piano stood crosswise 
at one end, and there were several oak settees and 
cupboards. At the windows hung art scrim cur- 
tains next the panes, and within, heavy dark red 
ones that shut out the night. 

Noodles came barking to meet them, a regular 
dowager of a Belgian griffon, plump and con- 
sequential, with big brown eyes and a snub nose. 
And smiling archly, with her eyes sparkling, 
Justine stood with arms akimbo. She had been 
Bab’s nurse years before in France, and had 
watched over her ever since. Jean loved the tall, 
dark-browed Brittany woman. In her quick 
efficient way, she managed Bab as nobody else 
could. No one ever looked upon Justine as a 
servant. She was distinctly “family,” and Jean 
was kissed soundly on both rosy cheeks and com- 


JUST A CITY SPARROW 97 


plimented volubly on her improved appearance. 

“It’s just the country air and plenty of exer- 
cise, Justine,” she said. 

“Ah, but yes, the happy heart too, gives that 
look,” Justine answered shrewdly. “I know. I 
have it myself in Brittany. One minute, I have 
something warm to eat.” 

She was gone into the inner room humming to 
herself, with Noodles tagging at her high heels. 

“Now take off your things and toast,” Bab 
said. /‘There aren’t any bedrooms excepting 
Mother’s in yonder. She will have a practical 
bedroom to sleep in, but we’ll curl up on the 
couches out here, and Justine has one. Oh, Jean, 
come and sing for me this minute.” 

Coat and hat off, she was at the piano, running 
over airs lightly, not the songs of Gilead, but 
bits that made Jean’s heart beat faster; some 
from their campfire club out at the Cove, others 
from the old art class Bab and she had belonged 
to, and then the melody stole into one she had 
loved, the gay Chanson de Florian, 

“Ah, have you seen a shepherd pass this way?** 

Standing behind her, under the amber glow of 
the big silk shaded copper lamp, Jean sang softly, 
and all at once, her voice broke. 


OB JEAN OF GREENACRES 


“What is it?” asked Bab, glancing up. 
“Tired?” 

Jean’s lashes were wet with tears. 

“I was wishing Mother were here too,” she 
answered. “She loves all this so — just as I do. 
It’s awfully lonesome up there sometimes with- 
out any of this.” 

Bab reached up impulsively and threw her 
arms around her. 

“I knew it,” she whispered. “I told Mother 
just from your letters that you had Gileaditis and 
must come down.” 

“Gileaditis?” laughed Jean. “That’s funny. 
Kit would love it. And it’s what I have got too. 
I love the hills and the freedom, but, oh, it is so 
lonely. Why, I love even to hear the elevated 
whiz by, and the sound of the wheels on the paved 
streets again.” 

“Jean Robbins,” Bab said solemnly. “You’re 
not a country robin at all, you’re a city sparrow.” 


“ARROWS OF LONGING” 



























, 















































































CHAPTER VI 


“arrows of longing’* 

Jean slept late the next morning, late for a 
Greenacre girl at least. Kit’s alarm clock was 
warranted to disturb anybody’s most peaceful 
slumbers at 6 a. m. sharp, but here, with cur- 
tains drawn, and the studio as warm as toast, 
Jean slept along until eight when Justine came 
softly into the large room to pull back the heavy 
curtains, and say chocolate and toast were nearly 
ready. 

“Did you close the big house at the Cove?*’ 
Jean asked, while they were dressing. 

“Rented it furnished. With Brock away at 
college and me here at the Academy, Mother 
thought she’d let it go, and stay with me. She’s 
over at Aunt Win’s while I’m at classes. 
They’ve got an apartment for the winter around 
on Central Park South because Uncle Frank 
can’t bear commuting in the winter time. We’ll 
go over there before you go back home. Aunt 
Win’s up to her ears this year in American Red 
Cross work, and you’ll love to hear her talk.” 


102 JEAN OF GREENACRES 


“Do you know, Bab,” Jean said suddenly, “I 
do believe that’s what ails Gilead. Nobody up 
there is doing anything different this winter from 
what they have every winter for the last fifty 
years. Down here there’s always something new 
and interesting going on.” 

“Yes, but is that good? After a while you ex- 
pect something new all the time, and you can’t 
settle down to any one thing steadily. Coming, 
Justine, right away.” 

“Good morning, you lazy kittens,” said Mrs. 
Crane, laying aside her morning paper in the big, 
chintz-cushioned rattan chair by the south win- 
dow. “I’ve had my breakfast. I’ve got two 
appointments this morning and must hurry.” 

“Mother always mortgages tomorrow. I’ll 
bet anything she’s got her appointment book 
filled for a month ahead. What’s on for today, 
dear?” 

“Dentist and shopping with your Aunt Win. 
I shall have lunch with her, so you girls will be 
alone. There are seats for a recital at Carnegie 
Hall if you’d enjoy it. I think Jean would. 
It’s Kolasky the ’cellist, and Mary Norman. 
An American girl, Jean, from the Middle West, 
you’ll be interested in her. She sings folk songs 
beautifully. Bab only likes orchestral concerts, 


‘ ARROWS OF LONGING 3 


103 


but if you go to this, you might drop in later at 
Signa’s for tea. It’s right upstairs, you know, 
Bab, and not a bit out of your way. Aunt Win 
and I will join you there.” 

“Isn’t she the dearest, bustling Mother,” Bab 
said, placidly, when they were alone. “Some- 
times I feel ages older than she is. She has as 
much fun trotting around to everything as if New 
York were a steady sideshow. Do you want to 
go?” 

“I’d love to,” Jean answered frankly. “I’ve 
been shut up away from everything for so long 
that I’m ready to have a good time anywhere. 
Who’s Signa?” 

“A girl Aunt Win’s interested in. She’s 
Italian, and plays the violin. Jean Robbins, do 
you know the world is just jammed full of 
people who can do things, I mean unusual things 
like painting and playing and singing, better than 
the average person, and yet there are only a few 
who are really great. It’s such a tragedy be- 
cause they all keep on working and hoping and 
thinking they’re going to be great. Aunt Win 
has about a dozen tucked under her wing that she 
encourages, and I think it’s perfectly deadly.” 

Bab planted both elbows on the little square 
willow table, holding her cup of chocolate aloft, 


104 JEAN OF GREENACRES 


her straight brows drawn together in a pucker of 
perplexity. 

“Because they won’t be great geniuses, you 
mean?” 

“Surely. They’re just half way. All they’ve 
got is the longing, the urge forward.” 

Jean smiled, looking past her at the view be- 
yond the yellow curtains and box of winter greens 
outside. There was a little courtyard below with 
one lone sumac tree in it, and red brick walks. 
A black and white cat licked its paws on the side 
fence. From a clothes line fluttered three pairs 
of black stockings. The voices of the little 
Vatellis floated up as they played house in the 
sunshine. 

“Somebody wrote a wonderful poem about 
that,” she said. “I forget the name, but it’s 
about those whose aims were greater than their 
ability, don’t you know what I mean? It says 
that the work isn’t the greatest thing, the purpose 
is, the dream, the vision, even if you fall short of it. 
I know up home there’s one dear little old lady, 
Miss Weathersby. We’ve just got acquainted 
with her. She’s the last of three sisters who were 
quite rich for the country. Doris found her, way 
over beyond the old burial ground, and she was 
directing some workmen. Doris said they were 


“ARROWS OF LONGING” 105 


tearing down a long row of old sheds and chicken 
houses that shut off her view of the hills. She 
said she’d waited for years to clear away those 
sheds, only her sisters had wanted them there be- 
cause their grandfather had built them. I think 
she was awfully plucky to tear them down, so she 
could sit at her window and see the hills. Maybe 
it’s the same way with Signa and the others. It’s 
something if they have the eyes to see the hills.” 

“Maybe so,” Bab said briskly. “Maybe I 
can’t see them myself, and it’s just a waste of 
money keeping me at the Academy. I’m not a 
genius, and I’ll never paint great pictures, but I 
am going to be an illustrator, and while I’m 
learning I can imagine myself all the geniuses 
that ever lived. You know, Jean, we were told, 
not long ago, to paint a typical city scene. Well, 
the class went in for the regulation things, Wash- 
ington Arch and Grant’s Tomb, Madison Square 
and the opera crowd at the Met. Do you know 
what I did ?” She pushed back her hair from her 
eager face, and smiled. “I went down on the 
East Side at Five Points, right in the Italian 
quarter, and you know how they’re always 
digging up the streets here after the gas mains 
or something that’s gone wrong? Well, I found 
some workmen resting, sitting on the edge of the 


106 JEAN OF GREENACRES 


trench eating lunch in the sunlight, and some 
kiddies playing in the dirt as if it were sand. 
Oh, it was dandy, Jean, the color and composi- 
tion and I caught it all in lovely splashes. I just 
called it ‘Noon.’ Do you like it?” 

“Splendid,” said Jean. 

Bab nodded happily. 

“Miss Patmore said it was the best thing I had 
done, the best in the class. You can find beauty 
anywhere if you look for it.” 

“Oh, it’s good to be down talking to you 
again,” Jean exclaimed. “It spurs one along so 
to be where others are working and thinking.” 

“Think so?” Bab turned her head with her 
funny quizzical smile. “You ought to hear 
Daddy Higginson talk on that. He’s head of 
the life class. And he runs away to a little slab- 
sided shack somewhere up on the Hudson when 
he wants to paint. He says Emerson or Thoreau 
wrote about the still places where you ‘rest and 
invite your soul,’ and about the world making a 
pathway to your door, too. Let’s get dressed. 
It’s after nine, and I have to be in class at ten.” 

It was now nearly a year since Jean herself 
had been a pupil at the art school. She had gone 
into the work enthusiastically when they had 
lived at the Cove on Long Island, making the 


ARROWS OF LONGING” 


107 


trip back and forth every day on the train. Then 
had come her father’s breakdown and the need 
of the Robbins’ finding a new nest in the hills 
where expenses were light. As she turned the 
familiar street with Bab, and came in sight of the 
gray stone building, she couldn’t help feeling just 
a little thrill of regret. It represented so much 
to her, all the aims and ambitions of a year before. 

As they passed upstairs to Bab’s classroom, 
some of the girls recognized her and called out a 
greeting. J ean waved her hand to them, but did 
not stop. She was too busy looking at the 
sketches along the walls, listening to the familiar 
sounds through open doors. Daddy Higginson’s 
deeply rounded laugh; Miss Patmore’s clear 
voice calling to one of the girls; Vallee, the lame 
Frenchman, standing with his arm thrown about 
a lad’s shoulders, pointing out to him mistakes in 
underlay of shadows. Even the familiar smell 
of turpentine and paint made her lift her nose as 
Princess did to her oats. 

“Vallee’s so brave,” Bab found time to say, ar- 
ranging her crayons and paper on her drawing 
board. “Do you remember the girl from the 
west who only wanted to paint marines, Marion 
Poole? Well, she joined Miss Patmore’s Maine 
class last summer and Vallee went along too, as 


108 JEAN OF GREENACRES 


instructor. She’s about twenty-four, you know, 
older than most of us, but Miss Patmore says she 
really has genius. Anyway, she was way out on 
the rocks painting and didn’t go back with the 
class. And the tide came in. Vallee went after 
her, and they say he risked his life swimming out 
to save her when he was lame. They’re married 
now. See her over there with the green apron 
on? They’re giving a costume supper Saturday 
night and we’ll go.” 

“I haven’t anything to wear,” Jean said hastily. 

“Mother’ll fix you up. She always can,” Bab 
told her comfortably. “Let’s speak to Miss Pat- 
more before class. She’s looking at you.” 

Margaret Patmore was the girls’ favorite 
teacher. The daughter of an artist herself, she 
had been born in Florence, Italy, and brought up 
there, later living in London and then Boston. 
Jean remembered how delightful her noon talks 
with her girls had been of her father’s intimate 
circle of friends back in Browning’s sunland. It 
had seemed so interesting to link the past and 
present with one who could remember, as a little 
girl, visits to all the art shrines. Jean had al- 
ways been a favorite with her. The quiet, im- 
aginative girl had appealed to Margaret Pat- 
more perhaps because she had the gift of visualiz- 


“ARROWS OF LONGING 5 


109 


ing the past and its great dreamers. She took 
both her hands now in a firm clasp, smiling down 
at her. 

“Back again, Jean?” 

“Only for a week or two. Miss Patmore,” Jean 
smiled, a little wistfully. “I wish it were for 
longer. It seems awfully good to be here and 
see you all.” 

“Have you done any work at all in the coun- 
try?” 

Had she done any work? A swift memory of 
the real work of Greenacres swept over Jean, 
and she could have laughed. 

“Not much.” She shook her head. “I sort of 
lost my way for a while, there was so much else 
that had to be done, but I’m going to study now.” 

“Sit with us and make believe you are back 
anyway. Barbara, please show her Frances’s 
place. She will not be here for a week.” 

So just for one short week, Jean could make 
believe it was all true, that she was back as a 
“regular.” Every morning she went with Bab, 
and joined the class, getting inspiration and 
courage even from the teamwork. Late after- 
noons there was always something different to 
take in. That first day they had gone up to the 
recital at Carnegie Hall. Jean loved the ’cello, 


110 JEAN OF GREENACRES 


and it seemed as if the musician chose all the 
themes that always stirred her. Chopin’s Noc- 
turne in E Flat ; one of the Rhapsodies, she could 
not remember which, but it always brought to her 
mind firelight and gypsies; and a tender, little 
haunting melody called “Petit Valse.” Up 
home she had played it often for her father at 
twilight and it always made her long for the un- 
fulfilled hopes. And then the “Humoreske,” 
whimsical, questioning, it seemed to wind itself 
around her heart and tease her about all her 
yearnings. 

Miss Norman sang Russian folk songs and 
some Hebrides lullabies. 

“I’m not one bit crazy over her,” said Bab in 
her matter of fact way. “She looks too whole- 
some and solid to be singing that sort of music. 
I’d like to see her swing into Brunhilde^ call or 
something like that. She’d wake all the babies 
up with those lullabies.” 

“You make me think of Kit,” Jean laughed. 
“She always thinks out loud and says the first 
thing that comes to her lips.” 

“I know.” Bab’s face sobered momentarily 
as they came out of the main entrance and went 
around to the studio elevator. “Mother says 


“ARROWS OF LONGING” 


111 


I’ve never learned inhibition, and that made me 
curious. Of course, she meant it should. So I 
hunted up what inhibition meant in psychology 
and it did rather stagger me. You act on im- 
pulse, but if you’d only have sense enough to 
wait a minute, the nerves of inhibition beat the 
nerves of impulse, and reason sets in. I can’t 
bear reason, not yet. The only thing I really 
enjoyed in Plato was the death of Socrates.” 

“That’s funny. Kit said something about that 
a little while ago, the sunset, and his telling some- 
one to pay for a chicken just as he took the 
poisoned cup.” 

“I’d like to paint it.” Bab’s gray eyes nar- 
rowed as if she saw the scene. “Why on earth 
haven’t the great artists done things like that 
instead of spotted cows and windmills.” 

Before Jean could find an answer, they had 
reached Signa Patrona’s studio. It seemed filled 
with groups of people. Jean had a confused 
sense of many introductions, and Signa herself, 
a tall, slender girl in black with a rose made of 
gold tissue fastened in her dusky, low coiled hair. 
She rarely spoke, but smiled delightfully. The 
girls found Mrs. Crane and her sister in a corner. 

“Aunt Win,” said Bab. “Here’s your coun- 


112 JEAN OF GREENACRES 


try girl. Isn’t she blooming? Talk to her while 
I get some tea.” 

“My dear,” Mrs. Everden surveyed her in a 
benevolent, critical sort of fashion, “you’re im- 
proved. The last time I saw you, was out at 
Shady Cove. You and your sisters were in some 
play I think, given by the Junior Auxiliary 
of the Church. You live in the country now, 
Barbara tells me. I have friends in the Berk- 
shires.” 

“Oh, but we’re way over near the Rhode Island 
border,” Jean said quickly. It seemed as if 
logically, all people who moved from Long Is- 
land must go to the Berkshires. “It’s real coun- 
try up there, Gilead Centre. We’re near the old 
Post Road to Boston, from Hartford, but no- 
body hardly ever travels over it any more.” 

“We might motor over in the spring, Barbara 
would enjoy it. Are the roads good in the 
spring, my dear?” 

Visions of Gilead roads along in March and 
April flitted through Jean’s mind. They turned 
into quagmires of yellow mud, and where the 
frost did take a notion to steal away, the road 
usually caved in gracefully after the first spring 
rains. Along the end of April after everybody 
had complained, Tucker Hicks, the road com- 


‘ARROWS OP LONGING” 113 


mitteeman, would bestir himself leisurely and 
patch up the worst places. No power in Gilead 
had ever been able to rouse Tucker to action be- 
fore the worst was over. 

“Mother’d dearly love to have you come,” she 
said. “The only thing we miss up there is the 
friendship of the Cove neighbors. If you 
wouldn’t mind the roads, I know you’d enjoy it, 
but they are awful in the spring. But nobody 
seems to mind a bit. One day down at the 
station in Nantic I heard two old farmers talk- 
ing, and one said the mud up his way was clear 
up to the wheel hubs. ‘Sho,’ said the other. ‘Up 
in Gilead, the wheels go all the way down in 
some places.’ Just as if they were proud of it.” 

Mrs. Everden shook her head slowly, and 
looked at her sister. 

“I can’t even imagine Bess Robbins living in 
such a forsaken place.” 

“Oh, but it isn’t forsaken,” protested Jean 
loyally. “And Mother really enjoys it because 
it’s made Father nearly well.” 

“And there’s no society at all up there?” 

“Well, no, not exactly,” laughed Jean, shaking 
her head, “but there are lots of human beings.” 

“I could never endure it in this world.” 

Jean thought privately that there are many 


114 JEAN OF GREENACRES 


things one has to learn to endure whether or no, 
and someway, just that little talk made her feel 
a wonderful love and loyalty towards the Mother- 
bird holding her home together up in the hills. 


THE CALL HOME 





CHAPTER VII 


THE CALL HOME 

The second evening Aunt Win took them 
down to a Red Cross Bazaar at her club rooms. 
J ean enjoyed it in a way, although after the open 
air life and the quiet up home, overcrowded, 
steam-heated rooms oppressed her. She listened 
to a famous tenor sing something very fiery in 
French, and heard a blind Scotch soldier tell 
simply of the comfort the Red Cross supplies 
had brought to the little wayside makeshift hos- 
pital he had been taken to, an old mill inhabited 
only by owls and martins until the soldiers had 
come to it. Then a tiny little girl in pink had 
danced and the blind soldier put her on his 
shoulder afterwards while she held out his cap. 
It was filled with green bills, Jean saw, as they 
passed. 

Then a young American artist, her face aglow 
with enthusiasm, stood on the platform with two 
little French orphans, a boy and girl. And she 
told of how the girl students had been the first to 


118 JEAN OF GREENACRES 


start the godmother movement, to mother these 
waifs of war. 

“Wonderful, isn’t it, the work we’re doing?” 
said Aunt Win briskly, when it was over and 
they were in her limousine, bound uptown. 
“Doesn’t it inspire you, Jean?” 

“Not one single bit,” Jean replied fervently. 
“I think war is awful, and I don’t believe in it. 
Up home we’ve made a truce not to argue about 
it, because none of us agree at all.” 

“Well, child, I don’t believe in it either, but 
if the boys will get into these fights, it always 
has fallen to us women and always will, to bind 
up the wounds and patch them up the best we 
can. They’re a troublesome lot, but we couldn’t 
get long without them as I tell Mr. Everden.” 

“That sounds just like Cousin Roxy,” Jean 
said, and then she had to tell all about who Cousin 
Roxy was, and her philosophy and good cheer 
that had spread out over Gilead land from Maple 
Lawn. 

Better than the bazaar, she had liked the little 
supper at the Vallee’s studio. Mrs. Crane had 
found a costume for her to wear, a white silk 
mandarin coat with an under petticoat of heavy 
peach blossom embroidery, and Bab had fixed her 
dark hair in quaint Manchu style with two big 


THE CALL HOME 


119 


white chrysanthemums, one over each ear. Bab 
was a Breton fisher girl in a dark blue skirt and 
heavy linen smock, with a scarlet cap on her 
head, and her blonde hair in two long heavy 
plaits. 

The studio was in the W est Forties, over near 
Third Avenue. The lower floor had been a 
garage, but the Vallee’s took possession of it, and 
it looked like some old Florentine hall in dark 
oak, with dull red velvet tapestry rugs and hang- 
ings. A tall, thin boy squatted comfortably on 
top of a chest across one corner, and played a 
Hawaiian ukulele. It was the first time Jean 
had heard such music, and it made her vaguely 
homesick. 

“It always finds the place in your heart that 
hurts and wakes it up,” Bab told her. “That’s 
Piper Pearson playing. You remember the 
Pearsons at the Cove, Talbot and the rest? We 
call him Piper because he’s always our maker of 
sounds when anything’s doing.” 

Piper stopped twanging long enough to shake 
hands and smile. 

“Coming down to the Cove?” 

“I don’t think so, not this time,” Jean said, 
regretfully. She would have loved a visit back 
at the old home, and still it might only have made 


120 JEAN OF GREENACRES 


her dissatisfied. As Kit said, “Beware of the 
fleshpots of Egypt when one is living on corn 
bread and Indian pudding.” 

Marion Vallee remembered her at once, and 
had the girls help make sandwiches behind a tall 
screen. Rye bread sliced very thin, and buttered 
with sweet butter, then devilled crabmeat spread 
between. That was Bab’s task. Jean found 
herself facing a Japanese bowl of cream cheese, 
bottle of pimentoes and some chopped walnuts. 

Later there was dancing, Jean’s first dance in 
a year, and Mrs. Crane smiled at her approv- 
ingly when she finished and came to her side. 

“It’s good to watch you enjoy yourself. Jean, 
I want you to meet the youngest of the boys here 
tonight. He’s come all the way east from the 
Golden Gate to show us real enthusiasm.” 

J ean found herself shaking hands with a little 
white haired gentleman who beamed at her cheer- 
fully, and proceeded to tell her all about his new 
picture, the Golden Gate at night. 

“Just at moonrise, you know, with the reflec- 
tions of the signal lights on ships in the water 
and the moon shimmer faintly rising. I have 
great hopes for it. And I’ve always wanted to 
come to New York, always, ever since I was a 
boy.” . 


THE CALL HOME 


121 


“He’s eighty-three,” Mrs. Crane found a 
chance to whisper. “Think of him adventuring 
forth with his masterpiece and the fire of youth 
in his heart.” 

A young Indian princess from the Cherokee 
Nation stood in the firelight glow, dressed in 
ceremonial garb, and recited some strange folk 
poem of her people, about the “Trail of Tears,” 
that path trod by the Cherokees when they were 
driven forth from their homes in Georgia to the 
new country in the Osage Mountains. Jean 
leaned forward, listening to the words, they came 
so beautifully from her grave young lips, and last 
of all the broken treaty, after the lands had been 
given in perpetuity, “while the grass grows and 
the waters flow.” 

“Isn’t she a darling?” Bab said under her 
breath. “She’s a college girl too. I love to 
watch her eyes glow when she recites that poem. 
You know, Jean, you can smother it under all 
you like, not you, of course, but we Americans, 
still the Indian is the real thing after all. 
Mother Columbia has spanked him and put him 
in a corner and told him to behave, but he’s per- 
fectly right.” 

Jean laughed contentedly. In her other ear 
somebody else was telling her the Princess was 


122 JEAN OF GREENACRES 


one fourth Cherokee and the rest Scotch. But 
it all stimulated and interested her. As Kit 
would have said, there was something new doing 
every minute down here. The long weeks of 
monotony in Gilead faded away. Nearly every 
day after class Mrs. Everden took the girls out 
for a spin through the Park in her car, and twice 
they went home with her for tea in her apartment 
on Central Park South. It was all done in soft 
browns and ivories, and Uncle Frank was in 
brown and ivory too, a slender soldierly gentle- 
man with ivory complexion and brown hair just 
touched with gray. He said very little, Jean 
noticed, but listened contentedly to his wife chat 
on any subject in her vivacious way. 

“I trust your father is surely recovering up 
there,” he said once, as Jean happened to stand 
beside him near a window, looking down at the 
black swans preening themselves on a tiny island 
below. “I often think how much better it would 
be if we old chaps would take a playtime now 
and then instead of waiting until we’re laid up 
for repairs. Jerry was like I am, always too 
busy for a vacation. But he had a family to 
work for, and Mrs. Everden and I are alone. 
I’d like mighty well to see him. What could I 
send him that he’d enjoy?” 


THE CALL HOME 


128 


“Oh, I don’t know,” Jean thought anxiously. 
“I think he loves to read now, more than any- 
thing, and he was saying just before I left he 
wished he had some new books, books that show 
the current thought of the day, you know what 
I mean, Mr. Everden. I meant to take him up 
a few, but I wasn’t sure which ones he would 
like.” 

“Let me send him up a box of them,” Mr. 
Everden’s eyes twinkled. “I’ll wake him up. 
And tell him for me not to stagnate up there. 
Rest and get well, but come back where he be- 
longs. There comes a point after a man breaks 
down from overwork, when he craves to get back 
to that same work, and it’s the best tonic you can 
give him, to let him feel and know he’s got his 
grip back and is standing firmly again. I’ll send 
the books.” 

Sunday Bab planned for them to go to service 
down at the Church of the Ascension on lower 
Fifth Avenue, but Mrs. Crane thought Jean 
ought to hear the Cathedral music, and Aunt 
Win was to take them in the evening to the Rus- 
sian Church for the wonderful singing there. 

Jean felt amused and disturbed too, as she 
dressed. Up home Cousin Roxy said she didn’t 
have a mite of respect for church tramps, those 


124 JEAN OF GREENACRES 


as were forever gadding hither and yon, seeking 
diversion in the houses of the Lord. Still, when 
she reached the Cathedral, and heard the familiar 
words resound in the great stone interior, she for- 
got everything in a sense of reverence and peace. 

After service, Mrs. Crane said she must run 
into the children’s ward across the street at St. 
Luke’s to see how one of her settlement girls was 
getting along. Bab and Jean stayed down in 
the wide entrance hall, until the latter noticed the 
little silent chapel up the staircase at the back. 

“Oh, Bab, could we go in, do you think?” she 
whispered. 

Bab was certain they could, although service 
was over. They entered the chapel, and knelt 
quietly at the back. It was so different from 
the great cathedral over the way, so silent and 
shadowy, so filled with the message to the inner 
heart, born of the hospital, “In the midst of life 
ye are in death.” 

“That did me more good than the other,” Jean 
said, as they went downstairs to rejoin Mrs. 
Crane. “I’m sure worship should be silent, with- 
out much noise at all. Up home the little church 
is so small and sort of holy. You just have that 
feeling when you go in, and still it’s very plain 


THE CALL HOME 


125 


and poorly furnished, and we haven’t a vested 
choir. The girls sing, and Cousin Roxy plays 
the organ.” 

Bab sighed. 

“Jean, you’re getting acclimated up there. I 
can see the signs. Even now your heart’s turn- 
ing back home. Never mind. We’ll listen to 
Aunt Win’s Russian choir tonight, and that shall 
suffice.” 

In the afternoon, some friends came in for tea, 
and Jean found her old-time favorite teacher, 
Daddy Higginson, as all the girls called him at 
the school. He was about seventy, but erect and 
quick of step as any of the boys ; smooth shaven, 
with iron gray hair, close cut and curly, and keen, 
whimsical brown eyes. He was really splendid 
looking, she thought. 

“You know, Jeanie,” he began, slipping com- 
fortably down a trifle in his easy chair, as Bab 
handed him a third cup of tea, “you’re looking 
fine. How’s the work coming along up there in 
your hill country? Doing anything?” 

Jean flushed slightly. 

“Nothing in earnest, Mr. Higginson. I 
rather gave up even the hope of going on with it, 
after we went away.” 


126 JEAN OF GREENACRES 


“You couldn’t give it up if it is in you,” he 
answered. “That’s one of the charms and bless- 
ings of the divine fire. If it ever does start a 
blaze in your soul’s shrine, it can never be put 
out. They can smother it down, and stamp on 
it, and cover it up with ashes of dead hopes, all 
that, but sure as anything, once the mind is re- 
laxed and at peace with itself, the fire will burn 
again. You’re going back, I hear from Bab.” 

Jean nodded. 

“I’m the eldest, and the others are all in school. 
I’m needed.” 

He smiled, looking down at the fire Justine 
had prepared for them on the wide hearth; 

“That’s all right. Anything that tempers 
character while you’re young, is good for the 
whole system. I was born out west in Kansas, 
way back in pioneer days. I used to ride cattle 
for my father when I was only about ten. And, 
Lord Almighty, those nights on the plains taught 
my heart the song of life. I wouldn’t take back 
one single hour of them. We lived in a little 
dugout cabin, two rooms, that’s all, and my 
mother came of a fine old colonial family out of 
Colebrook, in your state. She made the trip 
with my father and two of us boys, Ned and my- 
self. I can just remember walking ahead of the 


THE CALL HOME 


127 


big wagon with my father, chopping down un- 
derbrush and trees for us to get through.” 

“Wasn’t it dangerous?” asked Jean, eagerly. 

“Dangerous? No! The Indians we met 
hadn’t learned yet that the white man was an 
enemy. We were treated well by them. I know 
after we got settled in the little house, baking 
day, two or three of them would stand outside 
the door, waiting while my mother baked bread, 
and cake and doughnuts and cookies, in New 
England style, just for all the world like a lot 
of hungry, curious boys, and she always gave 
them some.” 

“Did you draw and paint them?” 

He laughed, a round, hearty laugh that made 
Mrs. Crane smile over at them. 

“Never touched a brush until after I was 
thirty. I loved color and could see it. I knew 
that shadows were purple or blue, and I used to 
squint one eye to get the tint of the earth after 
we’d ploughed, dull rusty red like old wounds, it 
was. First sketch I ever drew was one of my 
sister Polly. She stood on the edge of a gully 
hunting some stray turkeys. I’ve got the paint- 
ing I made later from that sketch. It was ex- 
hibited too, called ‘Sundown.’ ” 

“Oh, I saw it,” Jean exclaimed. “The land is 


128 JEAN OF GREENACRES 


all in deep blues and hyacinth tones and the sky 
is amber and the queerest green, and her skirt is 
just a dash of red.” 

“That’s what she always made me think of, a 
dash of red. The red that shows under an 
oriole’s wing when he flies. She was seventeen 
then. About your age, isn’t that, Jeanie?” 

He glanced at her sideways. Jean nodded. 

“I thought so, although she looked younger 
with her hair all down her back, and short dresses 

J 5 

on. 

“I — I hope she didn’t die,” said Jean, anx- 
iously. 

“Die? Bless your heart,” he laughed again. 
“She’s living up in Colebrook. Went back over 
the old trail her mother had travelled, but in a 
Pullman car, and married in the old home town. 
Pioneer people live to be pretty old. Just think, 
girlie, in your autumn of life, there won’t be any 
of us old timers left who can remember what a 
dugout looked like or a pioneer ox cart.” 

“It must have been wonderful,” Jean said. 
“Mother’s from the west too, you know, only 
way out west, from California. Her brother has 
the big ranch there now where she was born, but 
she never knew any hardships at all. Every- 
thing was comfortable and there was always 


THE CALL HOME 


129 


plenty of money, she says, and it never seemed 
like the real west to us girls, when she’d tell of it.” 

“Oh, but it is, the real west of the last forty 
years, as it is grown up to success and prosperity. 
Ned lives out there still, runs for the State Legis- 
lature now and then, keeps a couple of automo- 
biles, and his girls can tell you all that’s going on 
in the world just as easily as they can bake and 
keep house if they have to. If I keep you here 
talking any longer to an old fellow like myself, 
the boys won’t be responsible for their action. 

You’re a novelty, you know, Piper’s glaring at 
)» 

me. 

He rose leisurely, and went over beside Aunt 
Win’s chair, and Piper Pearson hurried to take 
his place. 

“I thought he’d keep you talking here all 
night. And you sat there drinking it all in as if 
you liked it.” 

“I did,” said Jean, flatly. “I loved it. I 
haven’t been here at all. I’ve been way out on 
the Kansas prairie.” 

“Stuff,” said Piper calmly. “Say, got any 
good dogs up at your place?” 

“No, why?” Jean looked at him with sudden 
curiosity. 

“Nothing, only you remember when you were 


130 JEAN OF GREENACRES 


moving from the Cove, Doris sold me her Boston 
bull pup Jiggers?” 

“Oh, I know all about it.” As if she could 
ever forget how they had all felt when Doris 
parted with her dearest treasure and brought the 
ten dollars in to add to the family fund. 

“We’ve got some dandy puppies. I was won- 
dering whether you’d take one home to Doris 
from me if I brought it in.” 

“I’d love to,” said Jean, her face aglow. It 
was just like a boy to think of that, and how 
Doris would love it, one of Jiggers’ own family. 
“I think we’ll call it Piper, if you don’t mind.” 

Piper didn’t mind in the least. In fact, he 
felt it would be a sign of remembrance, he said. 
And he would bring in the puppy as soon as J ean 
was ready to go home. 

“But you needn’t hurry her,” Bab warned, 
coming to sit with them. “She’s only been down 
a week, and I’m hoping if I can just stretch it 
along rather unconsciously, she’ll stay right 
through the term, the way she should.” 

Jean felt almost guilty, as her own heart 
echoed the wish. How she would study, if only 
it could happen. Yet there came the tug of 
homesickness too, along the end of the second 
week. Perhaps it was Kit’s letter that did it. 


THE CALL HOME 


131 


telling how the house was at sixes and sevens 
without her, and Mother had to be in fifty places 
at once. 

Jean had to laugh over that part though, for 
Kit was noted for her ability to attend to exactly 
one thing at a time. 

“Now, Shad, I can’t attend to more than one 
thing at a time, you know.” 

“Can’t you?” Shad had responded, medita- 
tively. “Miss Roxy can tend to sixty-nine and a 
half things at the same time with her eyes shut 
and one hand tied.” 

Then suddenly, out of the blue sky came the 
bolt. It was a telegram signed “Mother.” 

“Come at once. Am leaving for California.” 

Jean never stopped to think twice. It was 
the call to duty, and she caught the noon train 
back to Gilead Center. 








SEEKING HER GOAL 




































v 


CHAPTER VIII 


SEEKING HER GOAL 

All the way up on the train Jean kept thinking 
about Daddy Higginson’s last words when he 
had held her hand at parting. 

“This isn’t my thought, Jeanie, but it’s a good 
one even if Nietzsche did write it. As I used to 
tell you in class about Pope and Socrates and all 
the other warped geniuses, think of a man’s 
physical suffering before you condemn what he 
has written. Carlyle might have been our best 
optimist if he’d only discovered pepsin tablets, 
and lost his dyspepsia. Here it is, and I want 
you to remember it, for it goes with arrows of 
longing. The formula for happiness: ‘A yea, 
a nay, a straight line, a goal.’ ” 

It sounded simple enough. J ean felt all 
keyed up to new endeavor from it, with a long 
look ahead at her goal, and patience to wait for 
it. She felt she could undertake anything, even 
the care of the house during her mother’s absence, 


136 JEAN OF GREENACRES 


and that was probably what lay behind the tele- 
gram. 

When Kit met her at the station, she gave her 
an odd look after she had kissed her. 

“Lordy, but you do look Joan of Arc-ish, 
Jean. You’d better not be lofty up home. 
Everything’s at sixes and sevens.” 

“I’m not a bit Joan of Arc-ish,” retorted J ean. 
with a flash of true Robbins spirit. “ What’s the 
trouble?” 

Kit gathered up the reins from Princess’s 
glossy back, and started her up the hill. Mr. 
Briggs had somehow been evaded this time. 
There was a good coating of snow on the ground 
and the pines looked weighed down by it, all 
silver white in the sunshine, and green beneath. 

“Nothing much, except that — what on earth 
have you got in the bag, Jean?” 

Jean had forgotten all about the puppy. 
Piper had kept his word and met her at the train 
with Jiggers’ son, a sleepy, diminutive Boston 
bull pup all curled up comfortably in a wicker 
basket with little windows, and a cosy nest in- 
side. He had started to show signs of personal 
interest, scratching and whining as soon as Jean 
had set the bag down at her feet in the carriage. 


SEEKING HER GOAL 


137 


“It’s for Doris. Talbot Pearson sent it up 
to her to remember Jiggers by.” 

“Jiggers?” 

“It’s Jiggers’ baby,” said Jean solemnly. 
“Looks just like him, too. His name is Piper. 
Won’t she love him. Kit?” 

“I suppose so,” said Kit somewhat un- 
graciously. “I haven’t room for one bit of senti- 
ment after the last few days. You’ve been 
having a round of joy and you’re all rested up, 
but if you’d been here, well . . .” eloquently. 
“First of all there came a letter from Benita 
Ranch. Uncle Hal’s not expected to live and 
they’ve sent for Mother. Seems to me as if 
everyone sends for Mother when anything’s the 
matter.” 

“But Father isn’t going way out there too, is 
he?” 

“Yes. They’ve wired money for both of them 
to go, and stay for a month anyway, and Cousin 
Roxy says it’s the right thing to do. She’s going 
to send Mrs. Gorham, the Judge’s housekeeper, 
to look after us. Now, Jean, don’t put up any 
hurdles to jump over because it’s bad enough as 
it is, and Mother feels terribly. She’d never 
have gone if Cousin Roxy hadn’t bolstered up 


138 JEAN OF GREENACRES 


her courage, but they say the trip will do Father 
a world of good and he’ll miss the worst part of 
the winter, and after all, we’re not babies.” 

Jean was silent. It seemed as if the muscles 
in her throat had all tightened up and she could 
not say one word. They must do what was best, 
she knew that. It had been driven into her head 
for a year past, that always trying to do what 
was best, but still it did seem as if California were 
too far away for such a separation. The year 
before, when it had been necessary to take Mr. 
Robbins down to Florida, it had not seemed so 
hard, because at Shady Cove they were well ac- 
quainted, and surrounded by neighbors, but here 
— she looked out over the bleak, wintry landscape 
and shivered. It had been beautiful through the 
summer and fall, but now it was barren and 
cheerless. The memory of Bab’s cosy studio 
apartment came back to her, and a quick sense 
of rebellion followed against the fate that had 
cast them all up there in the circle of those hills. 

“You brace up now, Jean, and stop looking 
as if you could chew tacks,” Kit exclaimed, en- 
couragingly. “We all feel badly enough and 
we’ve got to make the best of it, and help 
Mother.” 

The next few days were filled with prepara- 


SEEKING HER GOAL 


139 


tions for the journey. Cousin Roxy came down 
and took command, laughing them out of their 
gloom, and making the Motherbird feel all would 
be well. 

“Laviny don’t hustle pretty much,” she said, 
speaking of old Mrs. Gorham, who had been the 
Judge’s housekeeper for years. “But she’s sure 
and steady and a good cook, and I’ll drive over 
every few days to see things are going along as 
they should, and there’s the telephone too. Bless 
my heart, if these big, healthy girls can’t look 
after themselves for a month, they must be poor 
spindling specimens of womanhood. I tell you, 
Betty, it’s trials that temper the soul and body. 
You trot right along and have a second honey- 
moon in the land of flowers. And if it’s the 
Lord’s will your brother should be taken, don’t 
rebel and pine. I always wished we had the 
same outlook as Bunyan did from his prison cell 
when he wrote of the vision on Jordan’s bank, 
when those left on this side sang and glorified 
God if one was taken home. Remember what 
Paul said, ‘For ye are not as those who have no 
hope.’ Jean, put in your mother’s summer 
parasol. She’s going to need it.” 

Shad drove them down to the station in a 
snowstorm. Jean stood in the doorway with 


140 JEAN OF GREENACRES 


Cousin Roxy and Mrs. Gorham, waving until 
they passed the turn of the road at the mill. The 
other girls were at school, and the house seemed 
fearfully lonely to her as she turned back and 
fastened the storm doors. 

“Now,” Cousin Roxy said briskly, drawing on 
her thick knit woolen driving gloves, “I’m go- 
ing along myself, and do you stand up straight, 
Jean Robbins, and take your mother’s place.” 
She mitigated the seeming severity of the charge 
by a sound kiss and a pat on the shoulder. “I 
brought a ham down for you chicks, one of the 
Judge’s prize hickory home smoked ones, and 
there’s plenty in the cellar and the preserve 
closet. You’d better let Laviny go along her 
own gait. She always seems to make out better 
that way. Just you have an oversight on the 
girls and keep up the good cheer in the house. 
Pile on the logs and shut out the cold. While 
they’re away, if I were you I’d close up the big 
front parlor, and move the piano out into the 
living room where you’ll get some good of it. 
Goodbye for now. Tell Laviny not to forget 
to set some sponge right away. I noticed you 
were out of bread.” 

Ella Lou took the wintry road with zest, the 
steam clouding her nostrils, as she shook her head 


SEEKING HER GOAL 


141 


with a snort, and breasted the hill road. Jean 
breathed a sigh as the familiar carriage disap- 
peared over the brow of the hill. Out in the 
dining-room, Mrs. Gorham was moving placidly 
about as if she had always belonged there, hum- 
ming to herself an old time song. 

“When the mists have rolled in splendor, from the beauty 
of the hills. 

And the sunshine warm and tender, falls in kisses on the 
rills. 

We may read love’s shining letter, in the rainbow of the 
spray. 

We shall know each other better, when the mists have 
cleared away.” 

When Shad returned from the station, he came 
into the kitchen with a load of wood on his arm, 
stamping his feet, and whistling. 

“Seen anything of Joe?” he asked. “I ain’t 
laid eyes on the little creature since breakfast, 
and he was going to chop up my kindling for 
me. I’ll bet a cookie he’s took to his heels. He’s 
been acting funny for several days ever since 
that peddler went along here.” 

“Oh, not really, Shad,” said Jean, anxiously. 
She had overlooked Joe completely in the hurry 
of preparations for departure. “What could 
happen to him?” 


142 JEAN OF GREENACRES 


“Nothing special,” answered Shad dryly, 
“ ’cepting an ingrowing dislike for work.” 

“You can’t expect a little fellow only nine to 
work very hard, can you?” 

“Well, he should earn his board and keep, I’ve 
been telling him. And he don’t want to go to 
school, he says. He’s got to do something. He 
keeps asking me when I’m going down to Nan- 
tic. Looks suspicious to me!” 

“Nantic? Do you suppose — ” Jean stopped 
short. Shad failed to notice her hesitancy, but 
went on out doors. Perhaps the boy was won- 
dering if he could get any trace of his father 
down at Nantic, she thought. There was a great 
deal of the Motherbird’s nature in her eldest 
robin’s sympathy and swift, sure understanding 
of another’s need. She kept an eye out for Joe 
all day, but the afternoon passed, the girls came 
home from school, and supper was on the table 
without any sign of their Christmas waif. And 
finally, when Shad came in from bedding down 
the cows and milking, he said he was pretty sure 
Joe had cut and run away. 

“Do you think it’s because he didn’t want to 
stay with us while Mother and Father were 
away?” asked Helen. 

“No, I don’t,” Shad replied. “I think he’s 


SEEKING HER GOAL 


143 


just a little tramp, and he had to take to the road 
when the call came to him. He wasn’t satisfied 
with a good warm bed and plenty to eat.” 

But Jean felt the responsibility of Joe’s loss, 
and set a lamp burning all night in the sitting 
room window as a sign to light his way back 
home. It was such a long walk down through 
the snow to Nantic, and when he got there, Mr. 
Briggs would be sure to see him, and make 
trouble for him. And perhaps he had wandered 
out into the hills on a regular tramp and got 
lost. Just before she went up to bed Jean called 
up Cousin Roxy and asked her advice. 

“Well, child, I’d go to bed tonight anyway. 
He couldn’t have strayed away far, and there 
are plenty of lights in the farmhouse windows to 
guide him. I saw him sitting on the edge of the 
woodpile just when your mother was getting 
ready to leave, and then he slipped away. I 
wouldn’t worry over him. It isn’t a cold night, 
and the snow fall is light. If he has run off, 
there’s lots of barns where he can curl down 
under the hay and keep warm. When the J udge 
drives down to Nantic tomorrow I’ll have him 
inquire.” 

But neither tomorrow, nor the day after, did 
any news come to them of J oe. Mr. Briggs was 


144 JEAN OF GREENACRES 


sure he hadn’t been around the station or the 
freight trains. Saturday Kit and Doris drove 
around through the wood roads, looking for foot- 
prints or some other signs of him, and Jean tele- 
phoned to all the points she could think of, giving 
a description of him, and asking them to send 
the wanderer back if they found him. But the 
days passed, and it looked as if Joe had joined 
the army of the great departed, as Cousin Roxy 
said. 

Before the first letter reached them from 
California, telling of the safe arrival at Benita 
Ranch of Mr. and Mrs. Robbins, winter decided 
to come and stay a while. There came a morn- 
ing when Shad had hard work opening the storm 
door of the kitchen, banked as it was with snow. 
Inside, from the upper story windows, the girls 
looked out, and found even the stone walls 
and rail fences covered over with the great 
mantle that had fallen steadily and silently 
through the night. There was something majes- 
tically beautiful in the sweep of the valley and 
its encircling hills, seen in this garb. 

“You’ll never get to school today, girls,” Mrs. 
Gorham declared. “Couldn’t get through them 
drifts for love nor money. ’Twouldn’t be 
human, nuther, to take any horse out in such 


SEEKING HER GOAL 


145 


weather. Like enough the mailman won’t pull 
through. Looks real pretty, don’t it?” 

“And, just think, Mother and Father are in 
summerland,” Helen said, standing with her arm 
around Jean at the south window. “I wish 
winter wouldn’t come. I’m going to follow 
summer all around the world some time when 
I’m rich.” 

“Helenita always looks forward to that happy 
day when the princess shall come into her own,” 
Kit sang out, gleefully. “Meantime, ladies, I 
want to be the first to tell the joyous tidings. 
The pump’s frozen up.” 

“Shad’ll have to take a bucket and go down 
to the spring then, and break through the ice,” 
Mrs. Gorham said, comfortably. “After you’ve 
lived up here all your life, you don’t mind such 
little things. It’s natural for a pump to freeze 
up this sort of weather.” 

“You know,” Kit said darkly to Jean, a few 
minutes later, in the safety of the sitting room, 
“I’m not sure whether I want to be an optimist 
or not. I think sometimes they’re perfectly 
deadly, don’t you, Jean? I left my window 
open at the bottom last night instead of the top, 
and this morning, my dear child, there was snow 
on my pillow. Yes, ma’am, and when I told 


146 JEAN OF GREENACRES 


that to Mrs. Gorham, she told me it was good 
and healthy for me, and I ought to have rubbed 
some on my face. Let’s pile in a lot of wood 
and get it nice and toasty if we do have to stay 
in today. Who’s Shad calling to?” 

Outside they heard Shad’s full toned voice 
hailing somebody out in the drifts, and presently 
Piney came to the door stamping her feet. She 
wore a pair of Honey’s old “felts,” the high 
winter boots of the men folks of Gilead, and was 
muffled to her eyebrows. 

“I walked over this far anyway,” she said 
happily. “Couldn’t get through with the horse. 
I wondered if we couldn’t get down to the mill, 
and borrow Mr. Peckham’s heavy wood sled, and 
try to go to school on that.” 

“We can’t break through the roads,” objected 
Doris. 

“They’re working on them now. Didn’t you 
hear the hunters come up in the night? The 
barking of the dogs wakened us, and Mother 
said there were four big teams going up to the 
camp.” 

Just then the door opened and Shad came in 
with the morning’s milk, his face aglow, his 
breath steaming. 

“Well, it does beat all,” he exclaimed, taking 


SEEKING HER GOAL 


147 


off his mittens and slapping his hands together. 
“What do you suppose? It was dark last night 
and snowing when I drove the cows up from the 
barnyard. They was all huddled together like, 
and I didn’t notice them. Well, this morning 
I found a deer amongst ’em, fine and dandy as 
could be, and he ain’t a bit scared, neither. Pert 
and frisky and lying cuddled down in the hay 
just as much at home as could be. Want to 
come see him? I’ve got a path shoveled.” 

Out they all trooped to the barn, through the 
walls of snow. The air was still and surpris- 
ingly mild. Some Phoebe birds fluttered about 
the hen houses where Shad had dropped some 
cracked corn, and Jim Dandy, the big Rhode 
Island Red rooster, stood nonchalantly on one 
foot eyeing the landscape as if he would have 
said, 

“Hull, think this a snowfall? You ought to 
have seen one in my day.” 

The barn smelled of closely packed hay and 
dry clover. Inside it was dim and shadowy, and 
two or three barn cats scooted away from their 
pans of milk at the sight of intruders. Shad 
led the way back of the cow stall to the calf 
corner, and there, sure enough, shambling awk- 
wardly but fearlessly to its feet, was a big brown 


148 JEAN OF GREENACRES 


deer, its wide brown eyes asking hospitality, its 
nose raised inquiringly. 

“You dear, you,” cried Doris, holding out her 
hand. “Oh, if we could only tame him; and 
maybe he’d bring a whole herd down to us.” 

“Let’s keep him until the hunters have gone, 
anyway,” Jean said. “Will he stay, Shad?” 

“Guess so, if he’s fed, and the storm keeps up. 
They often come down like this when feed’s 
short, and herd in with the cattle, but this one’s 
a dandy.” 

“And the cows don’t seem to mind him one 
bit.” Doris looked around curiously at the 
three, Buttercup), Lady Goldtip and Brownie. 
They munched their breakfast serenely, just as 
if it were the most everyday occurrence in the 
world to have this wild brother of the woodland 
herd with them. 

“Let’s call up Cousin Roxy and tell her about 
it,” said Kit. “She’ll enjoy it too.” 

On the way back to the house they stopped 
short as the sharp crack of rifles sounded up 
through the silent hills. 

“They’re out pretty early,” said Shad, shak- 
ing his head. “Them hunter fellows just love 
a morning like this, when every track shows in 
the snow.” 


SEEKING HER GOAL 


149 


“They’d never come near here,” Doris ex- 
claimed, indignantly. “I’d love to see a lot of 
giant rabbits and squirrels hunting them.” 

“Would you, bless your old heart,” laughed 
Jean, putting her arm around the tender hearted 
youngest of the brood. “Never have any hunt- 
ing at all, would you?” 

Doris shook her head. 

“Some day there won’t be any,” she said, 
firmly. “Don’t you know what it says in the 
Bible about, ‘the lion shall lie down with the 
lamb and there shall be no more bloodshed’?” 

Shad looked at her with twinkling eyes as he 
drawled in his slow, Yankee fashion, 

“Couldn’t we even kill a chicken?” 

And Doris, who specially liked wishbones, 
subsided. Over the telephone Cousin Roxy 
cheered them all up, first telling them the road 
committeeman, Mr. Tucker Hicks, was working 
his way down with helpers, and would get the 
mailman through even if he was a couple of 
hours late. 

“You folks have a nice hot cup of coffee ready 
for the men when they come along, and I’ll do 
the same up here, to hearten them up a bit. I’ll 
be down later on; a week from Monday is 
Lincoln’s birthday, and I thought we’d better 


150 JEAN OF GREENACRES 


have a little celebration in the town hall. It’s 
high time we stirred Gilead up a bit. I never 
could see what good it was dozing like a lot of 
Rip van Winkles over the fires until the first 
bluebird woke you up. I want you girls to all 
help me out with the programme, so brush up 
your wits.” 

“Isn’t that splendid?” exclaimed Kit, radi- 
antly. “Cousin Roxy is really a brick, girls. 
She must have known we were ready to nip each 
other’s heads off up here just from lack of oc- 
cupation.” 

Piney joined in the general laugh, and sat by 
the table, eyeing the four girls rather wistfully. 

“You don’t half appreciate the fun of being a 
large family,” she said. “Just think if you were 
the only girl, and the only boy was way out in 
Saskatoon.” 

Jean glanced up, a little slow tinge of color 
rising in her cheeks. She had not thought of 
Saskatoon or of Honey and Ralph for a long 
while. 

“When do you expect him back, Piney?” 

“Along in the summer, I think. Ralph says 
he is getting along first rate.” 

“Give him our love,” chirped up Doris. 


SEEKING HER GOAL 


151 


“Our very best wishes,” corrected Helen in 
her particular way. But Kit said nothing, and 
Jean did not seem to notice, so the message to 
the West went unchallenged. 






JEAN MOTHERS THE BROOD 



CHAPTER IX 


JEAN MOTHERS THE BROOD 

Cousin Roxy came down the following day 
and blocked out her plan for a celebration at the 
Town Hall on Lincoln’s Birthday, The girls 
had pictured the Town Hall when they had first 
heard of it as a rather imposing edifice, impos- 
ing at least, for Gilead. But it was really only 
a long, old gray building, one story high, built 
like a Quaker meeting house with two doors in 
front, carriage houses behind, and huge century- 
old elms overshadowing the driveway leading up 
to it. 

Two tall weather worn posts fronted the main 
road, whereon at intervals were posted notices 
of town meetings, taxes, and all sorts of “goings 
on and doings,” as Cousin Roxy said. An 
adventurous woodpecker had pecked quite a 
good sized hole in the side of one post, and here 
a slip of paper would often be tucked with an 
order to the fishman to call at some out of the 
way farmhouse, or the tea and coffee man from 
way over near East Pomfret. 


156 JEAN OF GREENACRES 


Next to the Town Hall stood the Methodist 
Church with its little rambling burial ground 
behind it, straying off down hill until it met a 
fringe of junipers and a cranberry bog. There 
were not many new tombstones, mostly old yel- 
lowed marble ones, somewhat one sided, with 
now and then a faded flag stuck in an urn where 
a Civil War soldier lay buried. 

“Antietam took the flower of our youth,” 
Cousin Roxy would say, with old tender mem- 
ories softening the look in her gray eyes as she 
gazed out over the old square plots. “The boys 
didn’t know what they were facing. My mother 
was left a young widow then. Land alive, do 
you suppose there’d ever be war if women went 
out to fight each other? I can’t imagine any fun 
or excitement in shooting down my sisters, but 
men folks are different. Give them a cause and 
they’ll leave plough, home, and harrow for a 
good fight with one another. And when Decor- 
ation Day comes around, I always want to hang 
my wreaths around the necks of the old fellows 
who are still with us, Ezry, and Philly Weaver, 
and old Mr. Peckham and the rest. And that 
reminds me,” here her eyes twinkled. The girls 
always knew a story was coming when they 
looked that way, brimful of mirth. “I just met 


JEAN MOTHERS THE BROOD 157 


Philly Weaver hobbling along the road after 
some stray cows, ninety-two years young, and 
scolding like forty because, as he said, ‘That boy, 
Ezry Hicks, who only carried a drum through 
the war, has dared ask for an increase in pension.’ 
Ezry must be seventy-four if he’s a day, but 
he’s still a giddy boy drummer to Philly.” 

Jean helped plan out the programme. It 
seemed like old times back at the Cove where the 
girls were always getting up some kind of enter- 
tainment for the church or their own club. Billy 
Peckham, who was a big boy over at Gayhead 
school this year, would deliver the Gettysburg 
speech, and the J udge could be relied on to give a 
good one too. Then Jean hit on a plan. Shad 
was lanky and tall, awkward and overgrown as 
ever Abe Lincoln had been. Watching him out 
of the dining-room window as he split wood, she 
exclaimed suddenly, 

“Why couldn’t we have a series of tableaux 
on his early life, Cousin Roxy. Just look out 
there at Shad. He’s the image of some of the 
early pictures, and he never gets his hair cut be- 
fore spring, he says, just like the horses. Let’s 
try him.” 

Once they had started, it seemed easy. The 
first scene could be the cabin in the clearing. 


158 JEAN OF GREENACRES 


Jean would be Nancy Lincoln, the young 
mother, seated by the fireplace, teaching her boy 
his letters from the book at her knee. 

“Dug Moffat will be right for that,” said Jean 
happily. “He’s about six. Then we must show 
the boy Lincoln at school. Out in Illinois, that 
was, wasn’t it, Cousin Roxy, where he borrowed 
some books from the teacher, and the rain soaked 
the covers, so he split his first wood to earn 
them.” 

Cousin Roxy promised to hunt up all the 
necessary historical data in the Judge’s library 
at home, and they went after it in earnest. 
Freddie Herrick, the groceryman’s boy over at 
the Center, was chosen for Abe at this stage, and 
Kit coaxed Mr. Ricketts, the mailcarrier, to be 
the teacher. 

“Go long now,” he exclaimed jocularly, when 
she first proposed it. “I ain’t spoke a piece in 
public since I was knee high to a grasshopper. 
I used to spout, ‘Woodman, spare that tree.’ 
Yep. Say it right off smart as could be. Then 
they had me learn ‘Old Ironsides.’ Ever hear 
that one? Begins like this.” He waved one 
arm oracularly in the air. “ ‘Aye, tear her tat- 
tered ensign down, long has it waved on high.’ 
Once they got me started, they couldn’t stop me. 


JEAN MOTHERS THE BROOD 159 


No, sirree. Went right ahead and learned ’em, 
one after the other. ‘At midnight in his guarded 
tent, the Turk lay dreaming of the hour — ’ 
That was a Jim dandy to roll out. And — and 
the second chapter of Matthew, and Patrick 
Henry’s speech, and all sorts of sech stuff, but 
I’d be shy as a rabbit if you put me up before 
everybody now.” 

Still, he finally consented, when Kit promised 
him his schoolmaster desk could stand with its 
back half to the audience to spare him from em- 
barrassment. 

“Oh, it’s coming on splendidly,” she cried to 
Cousin Roxy, once she was sure of Mr. Ricketts. 
“We’ll have Shad for the young soldier in the 
Black Hawk war, and three of the big boys for 
Indians. And then, let’s see, the courting of 
Ann Rutledge. Let’s have Piney for Ann. 
She has just that wide-eyed, old daguerreotype 
look. Give her a round white turned down 
collar and a cameo breast-pin, and she’ll be 
ideal.” 

The preparations went on enthusiastically. 
Rehearsals were held partly at Greenacres, 
partly over at the Judge’s, and always there 
were refreshments afterwards. Mrs. Gorham 
and Jean prepared coffee and cocoa, with cake, 


160 JEAN OF GREENACRES 


but Cousin Roxy would send Ben down cellar 
after apples and nuts, with a heaping dish of 
hermits and doughnuts, and tall pitchers of 
creamy milk. 

Doris was very much excited over her part. 
She was to be the little sister of the young soldier 
condemned to death for falling asleep on senti- 
nel duty. And she felt it all, too, just as if it was, 
as Shad said, ‘for real.’ Shad was the President 
in this too, but disguised in a long old-fashioned 
shawl of Cousin Roxy’s and the Judge’s tall hat, 
and a short beard. He stood beside his desk, 
ready to leave, when Doris came in and pleaded 
for the boy who was to be shot at dawn. 

“I know I’m going to cry real tears,” said 
Doris tragically. “I can’t help but feel it all 
right in here,” pressing her hand to her heart. 

“Well, go ahead and cry for pity’s sake,” 
laughed Cousin Roxy. “All the better, child.” 

Kit had been chosen for a dialogue between 
the North and the South. Helen, fair haired 
and winsome, made a charming Southland girl, 
very haughty and indignant, and Kit was a tall, 
determined young Columbia, making peace be- 
tween her and the North, Sally Peckham. 

It was Sally’s first appearance in public, and 
she was greatly perturbed over it. Life down 


JEAN MOTHERS THE BROOD 161 


at the mill had run in monotonous channels. It 
was curious to be suddenly taken from it into 
the limelight of publicity. 

“All you have to do, Sally, is let down your 
glorious hair like Rapunzel,” said Kit. “It’s 
way down below your waist, and crinkles too, 
and it’s like burnished gold.” 

“It’s just plain every-day red,” said Sally. 

“No, it isn’t, and anyway, if you had read 
history, you’d know all of the great and interest- 
ing women had red hair. Cleopatra and Queen 
Elizabeth and Theodora and a lot more. You’re 
just right for the North because you look sturdy 
and purposeful.” 

“You know, Cousin Roxy, I think you ought 
to be in this too,” said Jean, towards the last. 

“I am,” responded Cousin Roxy, placidly. 
“I’m getting up the supper afterwards. Out 
here you always have to give them a supper, or 
the men folks don’t think they’re getting their 
money’s worth. Sometimes I have an oyster 
supper and sometimes a bean supper, but this 
time it’s going to be a chicken supper. And not 
all top crust, neither. Plenty of chicken and 
gravy. We’ll charge fifty cents admission. I 
wish your father were here. He’d enjoy it. 
Heard from them lately?” 


162 JEAN OF GREEN ACRES 


Jean nodded, and reached for a letter out of 
her work-basket on the table. 

“Uncle Hal’s better, and Mother says — wait, 
here it is.” She read the extract slowly. 

“ ‘Next year Uncle Hal wants one of you girls 
to come out and visit the ranch. I think Kit will 
enjoy it most.’ ” 

“So she would,” agreed Cousin Roxy. 
“Don’t say when they expect to start for home, 
does it? Or how your father is?” 

“She only says she wishes she had us all out 
there until spring.” 

“Don’t write her anything that’s doleful. 
Let her stay until she’s rested and got enough 
of the sunshine and flowers. It will do her 
good. We’ll let her stay until the first of March 
if she likes.” Here Cousin Roxy put her arm 
around Jean’s slender waist and drew her nearer. 
“And then I want you should go up to visit Beth 
for the spring. She’s expecting you. You’ve 
looked after things real well, child.” 

“Oh, but I haven’t,” Jean said quickly. 
“You don’t know how impatient I get with the 
girls, especially Helen. It’s funny. Cousin 
Roxy, but Doris and I always agree and pal 
together, even do Helen’s share of the work for 
her, and I think that’s horrid. We’re all to- 


JEAN MOTHERS THE BROOD 163 


gether, and Helen’s just as capable of helping 
along as little Doris is.” 

“Well, what ails her?” Cousin Roxy’s voice 
was good natured and cheerful. “Found out 
how pretty she is?” 

“She found that out long ago,” Jean answered. 
“She isn’t an ordinary person. She’s the Prin- 
cess Melisande one day, and Elaine the next. 
It just seems as if she can’t get down to real 
earth, that’s all, Cousin Roxy. She’s always 
got her nose in a book, and she won’t see things 
that just have to be done. And Kit tells me I’m 
always finding fault, when I know I’m right.” 

“Well, well, remember one thing. ‘Speak the 
truth in love.’ Coax her out of it instead of 
scolding. She’s only thirteen, you know, Jeanie, 
and that’s a trying age. Let her dream awhile. 
It passes soon enough, this ‘standing with reluc- 
tant feet, where the brook and river meet.’ Re- 
member that? And it would be an awfully 
funny world if we were all cut out with the same 
cookie dip.” 

So Helen had a respite from admonishings, 
and Kit would eye her elder sister suspiciously, 
noticing Jean’s sudden change of tactics. Two 
of Helen’s daily duties were to feed the canary 
and water the plants in the sunny bay window. 


164 JEAN OF GREENACRES 


But half the time it was Kit who did it at the last 
minute before they hurried away to school. 
Then, too, Jean would notice Kit surreptitiously 
attack Helen’s neglected pile of mending and 
wade though it in her quick, easy going way, 
while Helen sat reading by the fire. But she 
said nothing, and Kit grew uneasy. 

“I’d much rather you’d splutter and say some- 
thing, Jean,” she said one day. “But you know 
Helen helps me in her way. I can’t bear to 
dust and she does all of my share on Saturday. 
She opened up that box of books for Father from 
Mr. Everden, and put them all away in his book- 
case in just the right order, and she’s been help- 
ing me with my French like sixty. You know 
back at the Cove she just simply ate up French 
from Mother’s maid, Bettine, when she was so 
little she could hardly speak English. So it’s 
give and take with us, and if I’m satisfied, I don’t 
think you ought to mind.” 

“I don’t, not any more,” Jean replied, bending 
over a neglected box of oil pastels happily. 
“You do just as you want to, and I’m awfully 
sorry I was catty about it. I guess the weather 
up here’s got on my nerves, although Cousin 
Roxy and Jean Robbins have cooked up some- 
thing between them, and that’s why she looks so 


JEAN MOTHERS THE BROOD 165 


serene and calm.” She paused in the lower hall 
and looked out of the little top glass in the door. 
Around the bend of the road came Mr. Ricketts’ 
little white mail cart and old white horse with all 
its daily promise of letters and papers. Kit was 
out of the house, bareheaded, in a minute, run- 
ning to meet him. 

“Got quite a lot this time,” he called to her 
hopefully. “I couldn’t make out all of them, but 
there’s one right from Californy and I guess 
that’s what you’re looking for.” 

Kit laughed and took back the precious load. 
Magazines from Mrs. Crane, and newspapers 
from the West. Post-cards for Lincoln’s birth- 
day from girl friends at the Cove, and one from 
Piper with a picture of a disconsolate Boston bull 
dog saying, “Nobody loves me.” 

Jean opened the California letter first, with 
the others hanging over the back of her chair. 
It was not long, but Kit led in the cheer of 
thanksgiving over its message. 

“We expect to leave here about the 18th, and 
should be in Gilead a week later.” 

Doris climbed up on a chair to the calendar 
next the lamp shelf, and counted off the days, 
drawing a big circle around the day appointed. 
But when they had called up Cousin Roxy and 


166 JEAN OF GREENACRES 


told her, she squelched their hopes in the most 
matter-of-fact way possible. 

“All nonsense they coming back here just at 
the winter break-up. I’ll write and tell them 
to make it the first of March, and even then it’s 
risky, coming right out of a warm climate. I 
guess you girls can stand it another week or 
two” 

“Well,” said Kit heroically, “what can’t be 
cured must be endured. Rub off that circle 
around the 18 th, Doris, and make it the first of 
March. What’s that about the Ides of March? 
Wasn’t some old fellow afraid of them?” 

“ J ulius Caesar,” answered Jean. 

“No such a thing,” said Kit stoutly. “It was 
Brutus or else Cassius. When they were having 
their little set-to in the tent. We had it at school 
last week. Girls, let’s immediately cast from us 
the cares of this mortal coil, and make fudge.” 

Jean started for the pantry after butter and 
sugar, but in the passageway was a little window 
looking out at the back of the driveway, and she 
stopped short. Dodging out of sight behind a 
pile of wood that was waiting to be split, was a 
familiar figure. Without waiting to call the 
girls, she slipped quietly around the house and 
there, sure enough, backed up against the wood- 


JEAN MOTHERS THE BROOD 167 


shed, his nose fairly blue from the cold, was Joe. 

“Don’t — don’t let Shad know I’m here,” he 
said anxiously. “He’ll lick me fearfully if he 
catches me.” 

“Oh, Joe,” Jean exclaimed happily. “Come 
here this minute. Nobody’s going to touch you, 
don’t you know that? Aren’t you hungry?” 

Joe nodded mutely. He didn’t look one bit 
ashamed; just eager and glad to be back home. 
Jean put her arm around him, patting him as her 
mother would have done, and leading him to the 
kitchen. And down in the barn doorway stood 
Shad, open mouthed and staring. 

“Well, I’ll be honswoggled if that little creetur 
ain’t come back home to roost,” he said to him- 
self. In the kitchen Joe was getting thawed out 
and welcomed home. And finally the truth came 
out. 

“I went hunting my dad down around Nor- 
wich,” he confessed. 

“Did you find him?” cried Doris. 

Joe nodded happily. 

“Braced him up too. He says he won’t drink 
any more ’cause it’ll disgrace me. He’s gone to 
work up there in the lockshop steady. He 
wanted me to stay with him, but as soon as I 
got him braced up, I came back here. You 


168 JEAN OF GREENACRES 


didn’t get my letter, did you? I left it stuck in 
the clock.” 

Stuck in the clock? Jean looked up at the old 
eight-day Seth Thomas on the kitchen mantel 
that they had bought from old Mr. Weaver. It 
was made of black walnut, with green vines 
painted on it and morning glories rambling in 
wreaths around its borders. She opened the 
little glass door and felt inside. Sure enough, 
tucked far back, there was Joe’s farewell letter, 
put carefully where nobody would ever think of 
finding it. Written laboriously in pencil it was, 
and Jean read it aloud. 

“Dere folks. 

I hered from a pedlar my dad is sick up in norwich. 
goodby and thanks i am coming back sum day. 

yurs with luv. 

Joe.” 

Joe looked around at them with his old con- 
fident smile. 

“See?” he said. “I told you I was coming 
back.” 

“And you’re going to stay too,” replied Jean, 
thankfully. “I’m so glad you’re not under the 
snow, Joe. You’d better run down and get in 
that kindling for Shad.” 

This took real pluck, but Joe rose bravely, and 


JEAN MOTHERS THE BROOD 169 


went out, and Shad’s heart must have thawed a 
little too, for he came in later whistling and said 
the little skeezicks was doing well. 

Jean laughed and sank back in the big red 
rocker with happy weariness. 

“And Bab said this country was monotonous,” 
she exclaimed. “If anything else happens for a 
day or so, I’m going to find a woodchuck hole 
and crawl into it to rest up.” 




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COUSIN ROXY’S “SOCIAL” 




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V 






CHAPTER X 

cousin roxy’s “social” 

The night of the entertainment down at the 
Town Hall finally arrived. Doris said it was 
one of the specially nice things about Gilead, 
things really did happen if you just waited long 
enough. There was not room enough for all the 
family in the buggy or democrat with only one 
horse, so the Judge sent Ben down to drive Mrs. 
Gorham over and the two youngest. Shad took 
the rest with Princess. All along the road they 
met teams coming from various side roads, and 
the occupants sent out friendly hails as they 
passed. It was too dark to recognize faces, but 
Kit seemed to know the voices. 

“That’s Sally Peckham and her father,” she 
said. “And Billy’s on the back seat with the 
boys. I heard him laugh. There’s Abby 
Tucker and her father. I hope her shoes won’t 
pinch her the way they did at our lawn party 
last year. And Astrid and Ingeborg from the 
old Ames place on the hill. Hello, girls! And 
that last one is Mr. Ricketts and his family.” 


174 JEAN OF GREENACRES 


“Goodness, Kit,” Jean cried. “You’re get- 
ting to be just like Cousin Roxy on family his- 
tory. I could never remember them all if I 
lived out here a thousand years.” 

“ ‘An I should live a thousand years, I ne’er 
should forget it,’ ” chanted Kit, gaily. “Oh, I 
do hope there’ll be music tonight. Cousin Roxy 
says she’s tried to hire some splendid old fellow, 
Cady Graves. Isn’t that a queer name for a 
fiddler? He’s very peculiar, she says, but he 
calls out wonderfully. He’s got his own burial 
plot all picked out and his tombstone erected with 
his name and date of birth on it, and all the deco- 
rations he likes best. Cousin Roxy says it’s 
square, and on one side he’s got his pet cow 
sculptured with the record of milk it gave, and on 
the other is his own face in bas relief.” 

“It’s original anyway,” said Jean. “I sup- 
pose there is a lot of satisfaction in fixing up 
your own last resting place the way you want it 
to be.” 

“Yes, but after he’d sat for the bas relief, there 
it was with a full beard, and now he’s clean 
shaven, and Cousin Roxy says if he didn’t get 
the stone cutter over to give the bas relief a shave 
too.” 

Down Huckleberry Hill they drove with all 


COUSIN ROXY’S “SOCIAL” 175 


its hollows and bumps and “thank-ye-ma’ams.” 
These were the curved rises where the road ran 
over a hidden culvert. Gilead Center lay in a 
valley, a scattered lot of white houses set back 
from the road in gardens with the little church, 
country store and Town Hall in the middle of it. 
The carriage sheds were already filled with teams, 
so the horses were blanketed and left hitched out- 
side with a lot of others. Inside, the little hall 
was filled with people, the boys perched up on 
the windowsills where they could get a good view 
of the long curtained-off platform that was used 
as a stage. 

Cousin Roxy was busy at her end of the room, 
preparing the supper behind a partition, with 
Mrs. Peckham and Mrs. Gorham to help. 
Around the two great drum stoves clustered the 
men and older boys, and the Judge seemed to 
loom quite naturally above these as leader. 
Savory odors came from the corner, and stray 
tuning up sounds from another corner, where 
Mr. Graves sat, the center of an admiring group 
of youngsters. Flags were draped and crossed 
over doorways and windows, and bunting fes- 
tooned over the top of the stage. 

Jean took charge behind the curtain, getting 
the children ready for their different parts in the 


176 JEAN OF GREENACRES 


tableaux. Then she went down to the old tink- 
ling, yellow keyed piano and everybody stood up 
to sing “My Country, ’Tis of Thee.” 

“Land alive, it does grip the heartstrings, 
doesn’t it?” Cousin Roxy exclaimed, once that 
was over. “I often wish I’d done something in 
my life to give folks a happy holiday every time 
my birthday came ’round.” 

Then the Judge rose and took the platform, 
so tall that his head just missed the red, white and 
blue bunting overhead. And he spoke of Lin- 
coln until it seemed as if even the smallest children 
in the front rows must have seen and known him 
too. Jean and Kit always enjoyed one of the 
Judge’s speeches, not so much for what he said, 
as for the pleasure of watching Cousin Roxy’s 
face. She sat on the end of a seat towards the 
back now, all in her favorite gray silk, her spec- 
tacles half way down her nose, her face upraised 
and smiling as she watched her sweetheart deliver 
his speech. 

“When you look at her you know what it 
means in the Bible by people’s faces shining, 
don’t you?” whispered Kit, as the Judge finished 
in a pounding applause in which hands, feet and 
chair legs all played their part. 

Next came the tableaux amid much excitement 


COUSIN ROXY’S “SOCIAL” 177 


both before the curtain and behind. First of all 
the curtain was an erratic and whimsical affair, 
not to be relied on with a one-man power, so two 
of the older boys volunteered to stand at either 
end and assist it to rise and fall at the proper 
time in case it should fail to respond to the efforts 
of the official curtain raiser, Freddie Herrick. 
But Fred’s mind was on the next ten minutes 
when he was to portray the twelve-year-old 
schoolboy Abe, and the crank failed to work, so 
the curtain went up with the pulley lines instead, 
and showed the interior of the little cabin with 
Dug Moffat industriously learning to read at 
Jean’s knee. And a very fair, young Nancy 
she made too, with her dark hair arranged by 
Cousin Roxy in puffs over her ears, and the plain 
stuff gown with its white kerchief crossed in 
front. On the wall were stretched ’possum and 
squirrel pelts, and an old spinning wheel stood 
beside the fireplace. 

“You looked dear, Jean,” Helen whispered 
when the curtain fell. “Your eyes were just like 
Mother’s. Is my hair all right?” 

Jean gave it a few last touches, and then hur- 
ried to help with the music that went in between 
the scenes. The school room scene was a great 
success. Benches and an old desk made a good 


178 JEAN OF GREENACRES 


showing, with some old maps hung around, and a 
resurrected ancient globe of the Judge’s. 

Mr. Ricketts appeared in all his glory, with 
stock, skirted coat, and tight trousers. And 
Fred, lean and lanky, his black forelock dangling 
over his eyes as he bent over his books, made a 
dandy schoolboy Lincoln. So they went on, 
each picture showing some phase in the life of the 
Liberator. But the hit of the evening was Doris 
pleading for the life of her sentinel brother. She 
had said she would surely cry real tears, and she 
did. Kneeling beside the tall figure of the Presi- 
dent, her little old red fringed shawl around her, 
she did look so woe begone and pathetic that 
Cousin Roxy said softly, 

“Land sakes, how the child does take it to 
heart.” 

Last of all came the tableau of the North and 
South being reunited by Columbia, and Kit 
looked very stern and judicial as she joined their 
reluctant hands, and gave the South back her 
red, white and blue banner. 

It was all surprisingly good considering how 
few things they had had to do with in the way 
of properties and scenery, but Cousin Roxy 
sprang a last surprise before the dancing began. 
JJp on the platform walked three old men, Philly 


COUSIN ROXY’S “SOCIAL” 179 


Weaver first, in his veteran suit, old Grandpa 
Bide Tucker, Abby’s grandfather, and Ezra 
Hicks, the “boy” of seventy. Solemn faced and 
self conscious they took their places, and there 
was the old Gilead fife and drum corps back 
again. 

“Oh, bless their dear old hearts,” cried Kit, her 
eyes filled with sudden tears as the old hands 
coaxed out “The Girl I Left Behind Me.” 

There was hardly a dry eye in the Town Hall 
by the time the trio had finished their medley of 
war tunes. Many were there who could remem- 
ber far back when the little village band of boys 
in blue had marched away with that same trio 
at its head, young Bide and Ezra at the drums, 
and Philly at the fife. When it was over and 
the stoop-shouldered old fellows went back to 
their benches, Cousin Roxy whispered to the 
Judge, and he rose. 

“Just one word more, friends and neighbors,” 
he said. “Mrs. Ellis reminds me. A chicken 
dinner will be served after the dancing.” 

The floor was cleared for dancing now, and 
Cady Graves took command. No words could 
quite do justice to Cady’s manner at this point. 
He was about sixty-four, a short, slender, active 
little man, with a perpetual smile on his clean 


180 JEAN OF GREENACRES 


shaven face, and a rolling cadence to his voice 
that was really thrilling, Helen said. 

It was the girls’ first experience at a country 
dance. They sat around Cousin Roxy watching 
the preparations, but not for long. Even Doris 
found herself with Fred filling in to make up a 
set. When the floor was full Cady walked 
around like a ringmaster, critically surveying 
them, and finally, toe up, heel down hard ready 
to tap, fiddle and bow poised, he gave the word 
of command. 

“Sa-lute your partners!” 

Jean thought she knew how to dance a plain 
quadrille before that night, but by the time Cady 
had finished his last ringing call, she was reduced 
to a laughing automaton, swung at will by her 
partner, tall young Andy Gallup, the doctor’s 
son. Cady never remained on the platform. 
He strolled back and forth among the couples, 
sometimes dancing himself where he found them 
slowing down, singing his “calling out” melodi- 
ously, quaintly, throwing in all manner of inter- 
polated suggestions, smiling at them all like some 
old-time master of the revels. 

“Cousin Roxy, do you know he’s wonderful,” 
said Kit, sitting down and fanning herself vigor- 
ously. 


COUSIN ROXY’S “SOCIAL” 181 


“Who? Cady?” Cousin Roxy laughed heart- 
ily. She had stepped off with the Judge just as 
lightly as the girls. “Well, he has got a way 
with him, hasn’t he? Cady’s more than a person 
up here. He’s an institution. I like to think 
when he passes over the Lord will find a pleasant 
place for him, he has given so much real happi- 
ness to everyone.” 

Last of all came the chicken supper, served at 
long tables around the sides of the hall. All of 
the girls were pressed into service as waitresses, 
with Cousin Roxy presiding over the feast like a 
beaming spirit of plenty. 

“Land, do have some more, Mis’ Ricketts,” 
she would say, bustling around behind the guests. 
“Just a mite of white meat, plenty of it. Mr. 
Weaver, do have some more gravy. I shall 
think I missed making it right if you don’t. 
There’s a nice drumstick. Dug.” 

“Had two already, Mis’ Ellis,” Dug piped up 
honestly. 

“Well, they’re good for you. Eat two more 
and maybe you’ll run like a squirrel, who knows,” 
laughed Cousin Roxy. 

“Kit,” Helen said once, as they rested a mo- 
ment near the little kitchen corner, “what a 
good time we’re having, and think of the differ- 


182 JEAN OF GREENACRES 


ence between this and an entertainment at home. 
Why is it?” 

“Cousin Roxy,” answered Kit promptly. 
“Put her down there and she’d bring people to- 
gether and make them have a good time just as 
she does here. Doesn’t Jean look pretty to- 
night? I don’t believe in praising the family, of 
course, far be it from me,” she laughed, her eyes 
watching Jean. “But I think my elder sister 
in her Nancy get-up looks perfectly dear. She’s 
growing up, Helenita.” 

Helen nodded her head in the old wise fashion 
she had, studying Jean’s appearance judicially. 

“Well, I don’t think she’ll ever be really 
beautiful,” she said, gently, “but she’s got a 
wonderful way with her like Mother. I heard 
Cousin Beth tell Father she had charm. What 
is charm, Kit?” 

“Charm?” repeated Kit, thoughtfully. “I 
don’t know exactly. But Jean and Mother and 
Doris have it, and you and I, Helenita, have only 
our looks.” 


CYNTHY’S NEIGHBORS 



CHAPTER XI 

cynthy’s neighbors 

After the entertainment there followed a siege 
of cold weather that pretty well “froze up every- 
body,” as Shad said. A still coldness without 
wind settled over the hills. No horses could 
stand up on the icy roads. Mr. Ricketts was 
held up with the mailcart for three days, and 
when the road committee started out to remedy 
matters, they got as far as Judge Ellis’s and 
turned back. None of the girls could get to 
school, so they made the best of it. Even the 
telephone refused to respond to calls. On the 
fourth day Mr. Peckham managed to break 
through the roads with his big wood sled, and 
riding on it was Sally muffled to the eyebrows. 

“Unwind before you try to talk,” Kit ex- 
claimed, taking one end of the long knit muffler. 
“How on earth did you get through?” 

“It isn’t so bad,” Sally replied in her matter- 
of-fact way, warming her hands over the kitchen 
fire. “And our hill is fine for coasting. The 


186 JEAN OF GREENACRES 


boys have been using it. Father’s going to break 
the road through for the mail cart, and on his way 
back we can all get on and ride back. You don’t 
need any sleds. We’ve got a big bob.” 

Jean and Helen hesitated. Winter at the 
Cove had never meant this, but Doris pleaded 
for them all to go, and Kit was frankly rebellious 
against this spirit in the family. 

“Jean Robbins,” she said, “do you really think 
it is beneath your dignity to slide down hill on 
a bobsled? You won’t meet one of Bab Crane’s 
crowd. Come along.” 

“It’s so cold,” Helen demurred, from her seat 
by the sitting-room fire with a book to read as 
usual. 

“Cold? You’re a couple of cats, curled up by 
the fire. Bundle up and let’s have some fun.” 

“Do you all a pile of good,” Mrs. Gorham said 
placidly. “You just sit around and toast your- 
selves ’stid of getting used to the cold. Get out 
and stir around. Look at Sally’s red cheeks.” 

So laughing together, they all wrapped up 
warmly and went out to get on the wood sled 
when it came back. The hill over by the saw- 
mill was not so steep, but it swept in long, un- 
dulating sections, as it were, clear from the top of 
Woodchuck Hill down to the bridge at Little 



The End of the Week Found the River Ready for Skating 

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CYNTHY’S NEIGHBORS 187 


River. The Peckham boys had been sliding for 
a couple of days, and had worn a fair sized track 
over the snow and ice. 

“There’ll be fine skating when the snow clears 
off a bit,” Billy called out. “We’ve got a skat- 
ing club, and you’ll have to join. Piney’s the 
best girl skater. Jiminy, you ought to see her 
spin ahead. We skate on the river when it’s like 
this and you can keep on going for miles.” 

“Do you know, girls,” Jean said on the way 
back, “I think we stay in the house too much 
and coddle ourselves just as Mrs. Gorham says. 
I feel simply dandy now. Who’s for the skating 
club?” 

Even Helen joined in. It seemed to take the 
edge off the loneliness, this co-operation of out- 
door fun and sport. The end of the week found 
the river clear and ready for skating. Jean 
never forgot her first experience there. It was 
not a straight river. It slipped unexpectedly 
around bends and dipping hillsides, curving in 
and out as if it played hide-and-seek with itself, 
Doris said, like the sea serpent that met its own 
tail half way around the seven seas. 

Up near the Greenacre bridge Astrid and 
Ingeborg met them with Hedda. Helen, the 
fanciful, whispered to Jean how splendid it was 


188 JEAN OF GREENACRES 


to have real daughters of the northland with 
them, but Jean laughed at her. 

“Cousin Roxy would say ‘fiddlesticks’ to that. 
I’m sure they were all born right on this side of 
the briny deep, you little romancer.” 

“It doesn't matter where they were born,,’'’ 
answered Helen, loftily. “They are the 
daughters of vikings somewhere back. J ust 
look at their hair and eyes.” 

It really was a good argument, Jean thought. 
They had the bluest eyes and the most golden 
hair she had ever seen. Sally skated up close to 
her and began to talk. 

“Father says when his father was a boy, there 
were gray wolves used to come down in winter- 
time from Massachusetts, and they’ve been 
chased by them on this river when they were 
skating.” 

“My father tells of wolves too,” Astrid said in 
her slow, wide-eyed way. “Back in Sweden. 
He says he was in a camp in the forest on the 
, side of a great mountain, and the men told him 
to watch the fires while they were hunting. 
While he was there alone there came a pack of 
wolves after the freshly killed game. He stood 
with his back to the fire and threw blazing pine 
knots at them to keep them back. While the fire 


CYNTHY’S NEIGHBORS 189 


kept up they were afraid to come close, but he 
could see the gleam of their eyes in the darkness 
all around him, and hear them snap and snarl to 
get at him. Then the men and dogs returned 
and fought them. He was only thirteen.” 

“Oh, and his name should have been Eric the 
Bold, son of Sigfried, son of Leofric.” Kit 
skated in circles around them, her muff up to her 
face as she talked. “You’ve got such a dandy 
name, Astrid, know it?” 

“It is my grandmother’s name,” Astrid 
answered in her grave unsmiling way. 

“But it means a star, the same as Stella or 
Estelle or Astarte or Ishtar. We’ve been study- 
ing the meanings of proper names at school, and 
it’s so fascinating. I wish I had been named 
something like Astrid. I’d love to be Brun- 
hilde.” 

Jean watched them amusedly. Kit and Helen 
had always been the two who had loved to make 
believe they were “somebody else,” as Helen 
called it. “Let’s play we’re somebody else,” had 
been their unfailing slogan for diversion and va- 
riety, but Jean lived in the world of reality. She 
was Jean Robbins, living today, not Melisande 
in an enchanted forest, nor Berengaria, not even 
Kit’s favorite warrior maid, Jeanne D’Arc. 


190 JEAN OF GREENACRES 


Helen could do up the supper dishes all by her- 
self, and forget the sordid details entirely making 
believe she was the Lady of Tripoli waiting for 
Rudel’s barque to appear, but Jean experienced 
all of the deadly sameness in everyday life. She 
could not sweep and dust a room and make be- 
lieve she was at the spring exhibitions. She 
could not face a basket of inevitable mending, 
and imagine herself in a castle garden clad in 
clinging green velvet with stag hounds pacing at 
her heels. 

When they had first come to the country to 
live, it had been comical, this difference in the 
girls’ temperaments. Mrs. Robbins had wanted 
a certain book in her room upstairs, after dark, 
and had asked Helen to run up after it. And 
Helen had hesitated, plainly distressed. 

“For pity’s sake, Helenita, run along,” Jean 
had said laughingly. “You’re not afraid of the 
dark, are you?” 

“I don’t know,” Helen had answered, doubt- 
fully. “Maybe I am. I’m the only one in the 
family with imagination.” 

Sometimes Jean almost envied the two their 
complete self-absorption. She was never satis- 
fied with herself or her relation to her environ- 
ment. Seeing so many needs, she felt a certain 


CYNTHY’S NEIGHBORS 191 


lack in herself when she shrank from the little 
duties that crowded on her, and stole away her 
time. She had brought up from New York a 
fair supply of material for study, and had laid 
out work ahead for the winter evenings, but the 
days were slipping by, and time was short. Her 
pads of drawing paper lay untouched in her desk 
drawer. Not a single new pencil had been used, 
not a stick of crayon touched. The memory of 
Daddy Higginson driving his herd of cattle 
cheered her more than anything when she felt 
discouraged. And after all, when she thought of 
the California trip and what a benefit it would 
be to her father, that thought alone made her put 
every regret from her, and face tomorrow 
pluckily. 

“I’m half frozen,” Doris said suddenly, just 
as they swung around a bend of the river, and 
faced long levels of snow-covered meadows. 
“Oh, girls, look there.” She stopped short, the 
rest halting too. Crossing over the frozen land 
daintily, following a big antlered leader, were 
five deer. Straight down to the river edge they 
came, only three fields from the girls. 

“They’ve got a path to their drinking place,” 
said Sally. “Don’t move, any of you.” 

“Oh, I wonder if ours is there,” Doris 


192 JEAN OF GREENACRES 


whispered. “He hasn’t been with the cows since 
the storm passed, but I know I could tell him 
from the rest. He had a dark patch of brown 
on his shoulder.” 

“There’s only one with antlers,” Sally 
answered. “I hope the hunters won’t find them. 
I never could bear hunters. Maybe if we had 
to depend on them for food it would be different, 
but when they just come up here and kill for fun, 
well, my mother says she just hopes some day it’ll 
all come back to them good and plenty.” 

“Yes, and who eats squirrel pie with the rest 
of us,” her brother teased. “And partridge too. 
She’s only talking.” 

“Don’t fight,” Helen told them softly. “Isn’t 
that a house over there where the smoke is?” 

“It’s Cynthy Allan’s house,” Ingeborg looked 
around warningly as she spoke the name. “I’m 
not allowed to go there. She’s queer.” 

“Isn’t that interesting,” Kit cried. “I love 
queer people. Let’s all go over and call on 
Cynthy. How old is she, Ingeborg?” 

“Oh, very old, over seventy. But she thinks 
she is only about seventeen, and she’s always 
doing flighty things. She’s lived out in the 
woods all summer, and she ran away from her 
family.” 


CYNTHY’S NEIGHBORS 193 


“She won’t hurt you, I suppose,” Sally ex- 
plained. “Mother says she just worked herself 
crazy. Once she started to make doughnuts and 
they found her hanging them on nails all over 
her kitchen, the round doughnuts, I mean. Lots 
of them. So folks have been afraid of her ever 
since.” 

“ J ust because she made a lot of doughnuts and 
hung them around her kitchen? I think that’s 
lovely,” Kit cried. “What fun she must have 
had. Maybe she just did it to nonplus people.” 

“I don’t know,” Sally said doubtfully. “She 
took to the woods after that, and now she lives 
in the house along with about fourteen cats.” 

“I shall call on Cynthy today, won’t you, 
Jean?” 

“I’d like to get warmed up before we skate 
back,” Jean agreed. “I don’t suppose she’d 
mind. If you don’t want to, Ingeborg, you 
could wait for us.” 

Ingeborg thought waiting the wiser plan, but 
the rest of them took off their skates, and started 
up over the fields towards the little grey house in 
the snow. There were bare rose bushes around 
the front door and lilacs at the back. Several 
cats scudded away at their approach and took 
refuge in the woodshed, and at the side window; 


194 JEAN OF GREENACRES 


there appeared a face, a long, haggard, old face, 
supported on one old, thin hand that incessantly 
moved to hide the trembling of the lips. Kit, on 
the impulse of the moment, waved to her, and 
smiled. 

“Gee, I hope she’s been cooking some of those 
doughnuts today,” said one of the Peckham 
boys. 

Jean tapped at the door. It was several 
minutes before it opened. Cynthy looked them 
over first from the window before she took any 
chances, and even when she did deign to lift her 
latch, the door only opened a few inches. 

“Could we please come in and get warm?” 
asked Jean in her friendliest way. 

“What did you stick out in the cold and get 
all froze up for?” asked Cynthy tartly. But the 
door opened wider, and they all trooped into the 
kitchen. Out of every rush bottomed chair there 
leaped a startled cat. The kitchen was poorly 
furnished, only an old-fashioned painted dresser, 
a wood stove, a maple table, and some chairs, 
but the braided rugs on the floor made little oases 
of comfort, and the fire crackled cheerfully, 
throwing sparkles from the copper tea kettle. 

“Ain’t had nobody to draw me no well water 
today,” Cynthy remarked apologetically. “Else 


CYNTHY’S NEIGHBORS 195 


I wouldn’t mind making you a cup of tea, such 
as it is. Warm you up a mite anyhow.” 

Steve Peckham grabbed the water pail and 
hustled out to the well, and his brother made for 
the woodshed to add to the scanty supply in the 
woodbox. 

“Ain’t had nobody to cut me no wood for a 
spell nuther,” Cynthy acknowledged. “You 
won’t find much out there ’ceptin’ birch and chips. 
Sit right down close to the fire, girls.” She 
looked them all over in a dazed but interested sort 
of way. “Don’t suppose — ” she hesitated, and 
Kit flashed a telepathic glance at Jean. It 
wasn’t possible Cynthy was still in the doughnut 
making business, she thought. But the old lady 
went on, “Don’t suppose you’d all like some of 
my doughnuts, would ye? They’re real good 
and tasty.” 

Would they? They drew up around the old 
maple table while Cynthy spread a red tablecloth 
over it, and set out a big milkpan filled with 
golden brown doughnuts. Jean found a chance 
to say softly, she hoped Miss Allan would come 
up to Greenacres soon, and sample some of their 
cooking too. 

“Ain’t got any hat to wear,” Cynthy answered 
briefly. “Never go anywheres at all, never see 


196 JEAN OF GREENACRES 


anybody. Might just as well be dead and buried. 
Anyhow, it’s over two and a half miles to your 
place, ain’t it? Used to be the old Trowbridge 
place, only you put a fancy name on it, I heard 
from the fishman. Don’t know what I’d do if it 
wasn’t for him coming ’round once a week. I 
never buy anything, but he likes to have a few 
doughnuts, and I like to hear all the news. I’d 
like to see how you’ve fixed up the old house. 
When nobody lived there, I used to go down and 
pick red raspberries. Fearful good ones over in 
that side lot by the barn.” 

“We made jam of them last year,” Kit ex- 
claimed, eagerly. “I’ll bring some down to you. 
sure.” 

“Wish I did have a hat to wear,” went on 
Cynthy, irrelevantly. “Wish I had a hat with 
a red rose on it. I had one once when I was a 
girl, and it was so becoming to me. Wish I had 
another just like it.” 

“There’s a red silk rose at home among some 
of Mother’s things. I know she’d love you to 
have it. She’ll be home soon, and I’ll bring it 
down to you when I find the rose.” 

The very last thing that Cynthy called from 
the door as they all trooped down the path, was 
the injunction to Kit not to forget the rose. 


CYNTHY’S NEIGHBORS 197 


“Isn’t it wonderful,” she said enthusiastically 
to Jean, as they skated home. “She must be 
seventy or eighty, Jean, but she longs for a red 
rose. I don’t believe age amounts to a thing, 
really and truly, except for wrinkles and rheu- 
matism. I’ll bet two cents when I’m as old as 
Cynthy is. I’ll be hankering after pink satin 
slippers and a breakfast cap with rosebuds.” 

J ean laughed happily. The outing had 
brought the bright color to her cheeks, and it 
seemed as if she felt a premonition of good tid- 
ings even before they reached the house up on 
the pine-crowned hill. She was singing with 
Doris as they turned in at the gateway and went 
up the winding drive, but Kit’s eagle eye dis- 
covered signs of fresh tracks in the snow. 

“There’s been a team or a sleigh in here since 
we went out,” she called back to them, and all at 
once Doris gave an excited little squeal of joy, 
and dashed ahead, waving to somebody who stood 
at the side window, the big, sunny bay window 
where the plant stand stood. Then Kit ran, and 
after her Helen, and Jean too, all speeding along 
the drive to the wide front steps and into the 
spacious doors, where the Motherbird stood 
waiting to clasp them in her arms. 




, 1 



















































V 





FIRST AID TO PROVIDENCE 


































































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Iff II 























CHAPTER XII 

FIRST AID TO PROVIDENCE 

It was after supper that night when the 
younger ones were in bed that J ean had a chance 
to talk alone with her mother, one of those inti- 
mate heart to heart talks she dearly loved. Mr. 
Robbins was so much improved in health that it 
really seemed as if he were his old self once more. 
The girls had hung around him all the evening, 
delighted at the change for the better. 

“It’s worth everything to see him looking so 
well,” Helen had said in her grave, grown-up 
way. “All the winter of trials and Mrs. Gor- 
ham, and the pump breaking.” 

“Yes, and to think,” Jean said to her mother, 
as the girls made ready for the procession up- 
stairs to bed, “to think that Uncle Hal got well 
too.” 

“I think it was half an excuse to coax us west, 
his illness,” laughed Mrs. Robbins, “and I told 
him so. But, oh, my chicks, if you could only 
see the ranch and live out there for a while. It 


202 JEAN OF GREENACRES 


took me back so to my girlhood, the freedom and 
sweep of it all. There is something about the 
west and its mountains you never get out of your 
system once you have known and loved them. I 
want you all to go out there some day.” 

“Isn’t it a pity that one of us isn’t a boy,” said 
Kit meditatively. “Just because we are all girls, 
we can’t go in for that sort of a life, and I’d love 
it. At least for a little while. I’d like my life 
to be a whole lot of experiences, one after the 
other.” 

“Piney says she’s going to live in the wilds any- 
way, whether she’s a girl or not,” Helen put in, 
leaning her chin on her palms on the edge of the 
table, her feet up in the big old red rocker. 
“She’s going to study forestry and be a govern- 
ment expert, and maybe take up a big claim 
herself. She says she’s bound she’ll live on a 
mountain top.” 

“Well, she can if she likes,” Jean said. “I like 
Mother Nature’s cosy corners, don’t you, 
Motherie? When you get up as high as you 
can on any old mountain top, what’s the use? 
You only realize how much you need wings.” 

“Go on to bed, all of you,” ordered Kit, briskly. 
“Jean, don’t you dare talk Mother to death 
now.” 


FIRST AID TO PROVIDENCE 203 


“Let me brush your hair,” coaxed Jean after 
it was all quiet. So they sat downstairs together 
in the quiet living-room, the fire burning low, 
Mrs. Robbins in the low willow rocker, her long 
brown hair unbound, falling in heavy ripples be- 
low her waist. She looked almost girlish sitting 
there in the half light, the folds of her pretty grey 
crepe kimono close about her like a twilight cloud, 
Jean thought, and the glow of the fire on her 
face. Jean remembered that hour often in the 
weeks that followed. After she had brushed out 
her hair and braided it in soft, wide plaits, she 
sat on the hassock at her feet and talked of the 
trip west and all the things that had happened 
at Greenacres during that time. 

“One thing I really have learned. Mother 
dear,” she finished. “Nothing is nearly as bad 
as you expect it to be. It was very discouraging 
when the pump was frozen, and Mrs. Gorham 
got lonesome, but Cousin Roxy came down and 
I declare, she seemed to thaw out everything. 
We got a plumber up from Nantic, and Cousin 
Roxy took Mrs. Gorham over to a meeting of 
the Ladies’ Aid Society, and it was over in no 
time.” 

“Remember the old king who offered half of 
his kingdom to whoever would give him a saying 


204 JEAN OF GREENACRES 


that would always banish fear and care? And 
the one that he chose was this, ‘This too shall pass 
away.’ ” 

“It’s comforting, isn’t it,” agreed Jean. “But 
another thing. Mother, you know I’ve never been 
very patient. I mean with little things. You’ll 
never know how I longed to stay down in New 
York with Bab this winter and go to art school. 
I can tell you now, because it’s all over, and the 
winter has done me good. But I was honestly 
rebellious.” 

Mrs. Robbins’ hand rested tenderly on the 
smooth dark head beside her knee. Kit always 
said that Jean’s head make her think of a nice, 
sleek brown partridge’s crest, it was so smooth 
and glossy. 

“I know what you mean,” she said, this 
Motherbird who somehow never failed to under- 
stand the trials of her brood. “Responsibility is 
one of the best gifts that life brings to us. I’ve 
always evaded it myself, Jean, so I know the 
fight you have had. You know how easy every- 
thing was made for me before we came here to 
live in these blessed old hills. There was always 
plenty of money, plenty of servants. I never 
worried one particle over the realities of life until 
that day when Cousin Roxy taught me what it 


FIRST AID TO PROVIDENCE 205 


meant to be a helpmate as well as a wife. So 
you see, it was only this last year that I learned 
the lesson which has come to you girls early in 
life. 

“Oh, I know,” as Jean glanced up quickly to 
object, “you’re not a child, but you seem just a 
kiddie to me, Jean. It was fearfully hard for 
me to give up our home at the Cove, and all the 
little luxuries I had been accustomed to. Most 
of all I dreaded the change for you girls, but 
now, I know, it was the very best thing that could 
have happened to us. Do you remember what 
Cousin Roxy says she always puts into her 
prayers? ‘Give me an understanding heart, Q 
Lord.’ I guess that is what we all lacked, and 
me especially, an understanding heart.” 

“Doesn’t Cousin Roxy seem awfully well 
acquainted with .God, Motherie,” said Jean 
thoughtfully. “I don’t mean that irreverently, 
but it really is true. Why, I’ve been going to 
our church for years and hearing the service over 
and over until I know it all by heart, but when 
she gets up at prayer meeting at the little white 
church, it seems as if really and truly, He is there 
in the midst of them.” 

“She’s an angel in a gingham apron,” laughed 
Mrs. Robbins. “Now, you must go to bed, dear. 


206 JEAN OF GREENACRES 


It’s getting chilly. Did you see how glad Joe 
was to have us back? Dear little fellow. I’m 
glad he had the courage to come back to us. I 
called up Roxy as soon as we arrived at the 
station, and she will be over in the morning early 
to plan about your trip to Weston.” 

“Oh, but — you can’t spare me yet, can you?” 
exclaimed Jean. “It’s still so cold, and I 
wouldn’t be one bit happy thinking of you 
managing alone here.” 

“I’ll keep Mrs. Gorham until you get back. 
It’s only twelve a month for her, and that can 
come out of my own little income, so we shall 
manage all right. I want you to go, Jean.” 
She held the slender figure close in her arms, her 
cheek pressed to Jean’s, and added softly, “The 
first to fly from the nest.” 

Jean felt curiously uplifted and comforted 
after that talk. It was cold in her own room 
upstairs. She raised the curtain and looked out 
at Greenacres flooded with winter moonlight. 
They were surely Whiteacres tonight. It was 
the very end of February and no sign of spring 
yet. She knew over in Long Island the pussy 
willow buds would be out and the air growing 
mild from the salt sea breezes, but here in the 
hills it was still bleak and frost bound. 


FIRST AID TO PROVIDENCE 207 


What would it be like at Weston? Elliott 
was away at a boys’ school. She felt as if Fate 
were lending her to a fairy godmother for a while, 
and she had liked Cousin Beth. There was 
something about her, — a curious, indefinable, 
intimate charm of personality that attracted one 
to her. Cousin Roxy was breezy and courageous, 
a very tower of strength, a Flying Victory stand- 
ing on one of Connecticut’s bare old hills and 
defying fate or circumstance to ruffle her feathers, 
but Cousin Beth was full of little happy chuckles 
and confidences. Her merry eyes, with lids that 
drooped at the outer corners, fairly invited you 
to tell her anything you longed to, and in spite 
of her forty odd years, she still seemed like a 
girl. 

Snuggled down under the big soft home-made 
comforters, Jean fell asleep, still “cogitating” as 
Cousin Roxy would have called it, on the im- 
mediate future, wondering how she could turn 
this visit into ultimate good for the whole family. 
There was one disadvantage in being born a Rob- 
bins. Your sympathies and destiny were linked 
so indissolubly to all the other Robbinses that you 
felt personally responsible for their happiness 
and welfare. So Jean dozed away thinking how 
with Cousin Beth’s help she would find a way of 


208 JEAN OF GREENACRES 


making money so as to lighten the load at home 
and give Kit a chance as the next one to fly. 

The winter sunshine had barely clambered to 
the crests of the hills the following morning when 
Cousin Roxy drove up, with Ella Lou’s black 
coat sparkling with frost. 

“Thought I’d get an early start so I could sit 
awhile with you,” she called breezily. “The 
Judge had to go to court at Putnam. Real sad 
case, too. Some of our home boys in trouble. 
I told him not to dare send them up to any State 
homes or reformatories, but to put them on pro- 
bation and make their families pay the fines.” 

Kit was just getting into her school rig, feady 
for her long drive down to catch the trolley car 
to High School. 

“Oh, what is it. Cousin Roxy?” she called from 
the side entry. “Do tell us some exciting news.” 

“Well, I guess it is pretty exciting for the poor 
mothers.” Mrs. Ellis got out of the carriage 
and hitched Ella Lou deftly, then came into the 
house. “There’s been considerable things stolen 
lately, just odds and ends of harness and bicycle 
supplies from the stpre, and three hams from 
Miss Bugbee’s cellar, and so on; a little here and 
a little there, hardly no more’n a real smart mag- 
pie could make away with. But the men folks 


FIRST AID TO PROVIDENCE 209 


set out to catch whoever it might be, and if they 
didn’t land three of our own home boys. It 
makes every mother in town shiver.” 

“None that we know, are there?” asked Helen, 
with wide eyes. 

“I guess not, unless it may be Abby Tucker’s 
brother Martin. There his poor mother scrimped 
and saved for weeks to buy him a wheel out of 
her butter and egg money, and it just landed him 
in mischief. Off he kited, first here and then 
there with the two Lonergan boys from North 
Center, and they had a camp up towards Cynthy 
Allan’s place, where they played they were cave 
robbers or something, just boy fashion. I had 
the Judge up and promise he’d let them off 
on probation. There isn’t one of them over 
fifteen, and Gilead can’t afford to let her boys go 
to prison. And I shall drive over this afternoon 
and give their mothers some good advice.” 

“Why not the fathers too?” asked Jean. 
“Seems as if mothers get all the blame when boys 
go wrong.” 

“No, it isn’t that exactly.” Cousin Roxy put 
her feet up on the nickel fender of the big wood 
stove, and took off her wool lined Arctics, 
loosened the wide brown veil she always wore tied 
around her crocheted gray winter bonnet, and let 


210 JEAN OF GREENACRES 


Doris take off her heavy shawl and gray and red 
knit “hug-me-tight.” It was quite a task to get 
her out of her winter cocoon. “I knew the two 
fathers when they were youngsters too. Fred 
Lonergan was as nice and obliging a lad as ever 
you did see, but he always liked cider too well, 
and that made him lax. I used to tell him when 
he couldn’t get it any other way, he’d squeeze the 
dried winter apples hanging still on the wild trees. 
He’ll have to pay the money damage, but the real 
sorrow of the heart will fall on Emily, his wife. 
She used to be our minister’s daughter, and she 
knows what’s right. And the Tucker boy never 
did have any sense or his father before him, but 
his mother’s the best quilter we’ve got. If I’d 
been in her shoes I’d have put Philemon Tucker 
right straight out of my house just as soon as he 
began to squander and hang around the grocery 
store swapping horse stories with men folks just 
like him. It’s her house from her father, and I 
shall put her right up to making Philemon walk 
a chalk line after this, and do his duty as a 
father.” 

“Oh, you glorious peacemaker,” exclaimed 
Mrs. Robbins, laughingly. “You ought to be 
the selectwoman out here, Roxy.” 

“Well,” smiled Cousin Roxy comfortably, 


FIRST AID TO PROVIDENCE 211 


“The Judge is selectman, and that’s next best 
thing. He always takes my advice. If the boys 
don’t behave themselves now, I shall see that they 
are squitched good and proper.” 

“What’s ‘squitched,’ Cousin Roxy?” asked 
Doris, anxiously. 

“A good stiff birch laid on by a man’s hand. 
I stand for moral persuasion up to a certain point, 
but there does come a time when human nature 
fairly begs to be straightened out, and there’s 
nothing like a birch squitching to make a boy 
mind his p’s and q’s.” 

“Hurry, girls, you’ll be late for school,” called 
the Motherbird, as she hurriedly put the last 
touches to three dainty lunches. Then she fol- 
lowed them out to the side door where Shad 
waited with the team, and watched them out of 
sight. 

“Lovely morning,” said Cousin Roxy, 
fervently. “Ice just beginning to melt a bit in 
the road puddles, and little patches of brown 
showing in the hollows under the hills. We’ll 
have arbutus in six weeks.” 

“And here I’ve been shivering ever since I got 
out of bed,” Jean cried, laughingly. “It seemed 
so bleak and cheerless. You find something 
beautiful in everything, Cousin Roxy.” 


212 JEAN OF GREENACRES 


“Well, Happiness is a sort of habit, I guess, 
Jeanie. Come tell me, now, how are you fixed 
about going away? That’s why I came down.” 

“You mean — ” 

“I mean in clothes. Don’t mind my speaking 
right out, because I know that Bethiah will want 
to trot you around, and you must look right. 
And don’t you say one word against it, Eliza- 
beth,” as Mrs. Robbins started to speak. “Your 
trip out west has been an expense, and the child 
must have her chance. Makes me think, Jean, 
of my first silk dress. Nobody knew how much 
I wanted one, and I was about fourteen, skinny 
and overgrown, with pigtails down my back. 
Cousin Beth’s mother, our well-to-do aunt in 
Boston, sent a silk dress to my little sister Susan 
who died. I can see it now, just as plain as can 
be, a sort of dark bottle green with a little spray 
of violets here and there. Susan was sort of 
pining anyway, and green made her look too pale, 
so the dress was set aside for me. Mother said 
she’d let the hem down and face it when she had 
time but there was a picnic, and my heart 
hungered for that silk dress to wear. I managed 
somehow to squeeze into it, and slip away with 
the other girls before Mother noticed me.” 


FIRST AID TO PROVIDENCE 213 


“But did it fit you?” asked Jean. 

“Fit me?” Cousin Roxy laughed heartily. 
“Fit me like an acorn cap would a bullfrog. I 
let the hem down as far as I could, but didn’t 
stop to hem it or face it, and there it hung, six 
inches below my petticoats, with the sun shining 
through as nice as could be. My Sunday School 
teacher took me to one side and said severely, 
‘Roxana Letitia Robbins, does your mother 
know that you’ve let that hem down six ways for 
Sunday?’ Well, it did take away my hankering 
for a silk dress. Now, run along upstairs and 
get out all your wardrobe so we can look it over.” 

Jean obeyed. Somehow Cousin Roxy had a 
way of sweeping objections away before her 
airily. And the wardrobe was at a low ebb, 
when it came to recent styles. In Gilead Center, 
anything later than the time of the mutton leg 
sleeve was regarded as just a bit too previous, 
as Deacon Farley’s wife said when Cousin Roxy 
laid away her great aunt’s Paisley shawl after 
she married the Judge. 

She dragged her rocking chair over beside the 
sofa now, and took inventory of the pile of cloth- 
ing Jean laid there. 

“You’ll want a good knockabout sport coat 


214 JEAN OF GREENACRES 


like the other girls are wearing, and a pretty mid- 
season hat to match. Then a real girlish sort of 
a silk sweater for the warm spring days that are 
coming, and a good skirt for mornings. Bethiah 
likes to play tennis, and she’ll have you out at 
daybreak. Better get a pleated blue serge. 
Now, what about party gowns?” 

Here Jean felt quite proud as she laid out her 
assortment. The girls had always gone out a 
good deal at the Cove, and she had a number of 
well chosen, expensive dresses. 

“They look all right to me, but I guess 
Bethiah’ll know what to do to them, with a touch 
here and there. Real lace on them, oh, Eliza- 
beth!” She shook her head reprovingly at Mrs. 
Robbins, just sitting down with a pan of apples 
to pare. 

“I’d rather go without than not have the real,” 
Jean said quickly, trying to spare the Mother- 
bird’s feelings, but Gilead had indeed been a balm 
to pride. She laughed happily. 

“I know, Roxy, it was foolish. But see how 
handy it comes in now. We’ve hardly had to 
buy any new clothes since we moved out here, 
and the girls have done wonderfully well making 
over their old dresses.” 

“Especially Helen,” Jean put in. “Helen 


FIRST AID TO PROVIDENCE 215 


would garb us all in faded velvets and silks, 
princesses wearing out their old court robes in 
exile.” 

“Well, if I were you, I’d just bundle all I 
wanted to take along in the way of pretty things 
into the trunk and let Bethiah tell you what to 
do with them. She knows just what’s what in 
the latest styles, and you’ll be like a lily of the 
field. I’ll get you the coat and sweater and 
serge skirt, and all the shoes and stockings you’ll 
need to match. Go long, child, you’ll squeeze 
the breath out of me,” as Jean gave her a royal 
hug. “I must be trotting along.” She rose, and 
started to bundle up, but gave an exclamation as 
she glanced out of the window. “For pity’s sake, 
w T hat’s Cynthy Allan doing way off up here?” 

Sure enough, hobbling along from the garden 
gate was Cynthy herself, one hand holding fast 
to an old cane, the other drawing around her frail 
figure an old-fashioned black silk dolman, its 
knotted fringe fluttering in the breeze. 

Straight up the walk she came, determined and 
self possessed, with a certain air of dignity which 
neither poverty nor years of isolation could take 
from her. 

Cousin Roxy watched her with reminiscent 
eyes, quoting softly: 


216 JEAN OF GREENACRES 


“You may break, you may shatter the vase if you will. 

But the scent of the roses will hang round it still.’* 

“Cynthy used to be the best dancer of all the 
girls when I was young, and I’ll never forget how 
the rest of us envied her beautiful hands. She 
was an old maid even then, in the thirties, but 
slim and pretty as could be.” 

Jean hurried to the side door, opening it wide 
to greet her. 

“I didn’t think you’d mind my coming so 
early,” she said apologetically, “but I’ve had that 
rose on my mind ever since you were all over to 
see me.” 

“Oh, do come right in, Miss Allan,” Jean ex- 
claimed warmly. “What a long, long walk 
you’ve had.” 

“ ’Tain’t but two miles and a half by the road,” 
Cynthy answered as sprightly as could be. “I 
don’t mind it much when I’ve got something 
ahead of me. You see, I’ve been wanting to ride 
up to Moosup this long while to get some rags 
woven into carpets and I need that rose for my 
hat something fearful.” 

Jean led her through the long side entry way 
and into the cheery warm sitting room before she 
hardly realized where she was going, until she 


FIRST AID TO PROVIDENCE 217 


found herself facing Cousin Roxy and Mrs. 
Robbins. 

“Land alive, Cynthy,” exclaimed the former, 
happily. “I haven’t seen you in mercy knows 
when. Where are you keeping yourself?” 

“Take the low willow rocker, Miss Allan,” 
urged Mrs. Robbins after the introduction was 
over, and she had helped lift the ancient dolman 
from Cynthy ’s worn shoulders. Jean was 
hovering over the rocker delightedly. As she 
told the girls afterwards, Mother was just as dear 
and charming as if Cynthy had been the presi- 
dent of the Social Study Club back home. 

“Thank ye kindly,” said Cynthy with a little 
sigh of relief. She stretched out her hands to 
the fire, looking from one to the other of them 
with a mingling of pride and appeal. Those 
scrawny hands with their knotted knuckles and 
large veins. Jean thought of what Cousin Roxy 
had said, that Cynthy’s hands had been so beau- 
tiful. She ran upstairs to find the rose. It was 
in a big cretonne covered “catch-all” box, tucked 
away with odds and ends of silks and laces, a 
large hand-made French rose of silk and velvet, 
its petals shaded delicately from palest pink at 
the heart to deep crimson at the outer rim. 
There was a black lace veil in the box too that 


218 JEAN OF GREENACRES 


seemed to go with it, so J ean took them both back 
downstairs, and Cynthy’s face was a study as she 
looked at them. She rocked to and fro gently, 
a smile of perfect content on her face, her head 
a bit on one side. 

“Ain’t it sightly, Roxy?” she said. “And 
those shades always did become me so. I sup- 
pose it’s foolish of me, but I just needed that 
rose to hearten me up for the trip to Moosup. I 
had a letter from the town clerk.” She fumbled 
in the folds of her skirt for it. “He says I 
haven’t paid my taxes in over two years, and the 
town can’t let them go on any longer, and any- 
how, he thinks it would be better for me to let 
the house and six acres be sold for the taxes, and 
for me to go down to the town farm. My heart’s 
nigh broken over it.” 

Cousin Roxy was sitting very straight in her 
chair, her shoulders squared in fighting trim, her 
eyes bright as a squirrel’s behind her spectacles. 

“What do you calculate to do about it, 
Cynthy?” 

“Well, I had a lot of good rag rugs saved up, 
and I thought mebbe I could sell them for some- 
thing, and some more rags ready for weaving, 
and there’s some real fine old china that belonged 
to old Aunt Deborah Bristow, willow pattern 


FIRST AID TO PROVIDENCE 219 


and Rose Windsor, and the two creamer sets in 
copper glaze and silver gilt. I’ll have to sell the 
whole lot, most likely. It’s twenty-four dol- 
lars.” 

Jean was busily sewing the rose in place on the 
old black bonnet and draping the lace veil over 
it. Mrs. Robbins’ eyes flashed a signal to Cousin 
Roxy and the latter caught it. 

“Cynthy,” she said briskly, “you get all 
warmed up and rested here, and I’ll drive down 
and see Fred Bennet. He’s the other selectman 
with the Judge, and I guess between them, we 
can stop any such goings on. It isn’t going to 
cost the town any for your board and keep, any- 
body that’s been as good a neighbor as you have 
in your day, helping folks right and left. I 
shan’t have it. Which would you rather do, stay 
on at your own place, or come over to me for a 
spell? I’ll keep you busy sewing on my carpet 
rags, and we’ll talk over old times. I was just 
telling Mrs. Robbins and Jean what a lovely 
dancer you used to be, and what pretty hands 
you had.” 

Cynthy’s faded hazel eyes blinked wistfully 
behind her steel rimmed “specs.” Her hand 
went up to hide the trembling of her lips, but 
before she could answer, the tears came freely. 


220 JEAN OF GREENACRES 


and she rocked herself to and fro, with Jean 
kneeling beside her petting her, and Mrs. Rob- 
bins hurrying for a hot cup of tea. 

“I’d rather stay at my own place, Roxy,” she 
said finally, when she could speak. “It’s home, 
and there’s all the cats to keep me company. If 
I could stay on down there, and see some of you 
now and then, I’d rather, only,” she looked up 
pleadingly, “could I just drive over with you 
today, so as to have a chance to wear the red 
rose?” 

Could she? The very desire appealed in- 
stantly to Cousin Roxy’s sense of the fitness of 
things, and she drove away finally with Cynthy. 
It was hard to say which looked the proudest. 

“Mother darling,” Jean said solemnly, watch- 
ing them from the window. “Isn’t that a won- 
derful thing?” 

“What, dear? Roxy’s everlasting helping of 
Providence? I’ve grown so accustomed to it 
now that nothing she undertakes surprises me.” 

“No, I don’t mean that.” Jean’s eyes 
sparkled as if she had discovered the jewel of 
philosophy. “I mean that poor old woman over 
seventy being able to take happiness and pride 
out of that red rose, when life looked all hopeless 
to her. That’s eternal youth, Mother mine, isn’t 


FIRST AID TO PROVIDENCE 221 


it? To think that old rose could bring such a 
look to her eyes.” 

“It wasn’t so much the rose that drew her 
here,” said the Motherbird, gazing out of the 
window at the winding hill road Ella Lou had 
just travelled. “It was the lure of human com- 
panionship and neighborliness. We’ll let Doris 
and Helen take her some preserves tomorrow, 
and try and cheer her up with little visits down 
there. How Cousin Roxy will enjoy facing the 
town clerk and showing him the right way to 
settle things without breaking people’s hearts. 
There comes the mail, dear. Have you any to 
send out?” 

Jean caught up a box of lichens and ferns she 
had gathered for Bab, and hurried out to the 
box. It stood down at the entrance gates, quite 
a good walk on a cold day, and her cheeks were 
glowing when she met Mr. Ricketts. 

“Two letters for you, Miss Robbins,” he called 
out cheerfully. “One from New York, and 
one,” he turned it over to be sure, “from Boston. 
Didn’t know you had any folks up Boston way. 
Got another one here for your father looks in- 
teresting and unusual. From Canady. I sup- 
pose, come to think of it, that might be from 
Ralph McRae or maybe Honey Hancock, eh?” 


222 JEAN OF GREENACRES 


Jean took the letters, and tried to divert him 
from an examination of the mail, his daily 
pastime. 

“It looks as if we might have a thaw, doesn’t 
it?” 

“Does so,” he replied, reassuringly, “but we’ll 
get a hard spell of weather along in March, as 
usual. Tell your Pa if he don’t want to save 
them New York Sunday papers, I’d like to have 
a good look at them. Couldn’t see anything but 
some of the headlines, they was done up so tight. 
Go ’long there, Alexander.” 

Alexander, the old white horse, picked up his 
hoofs and trotted leisurely down the hill to the 
little bridge, with his usual air of resigned non- 
chalance, while Jean ran back with the unusual 
and interesting mail, laughing as she went. 
Still, as Cousin Roxy said, it was something to 
feel you were adding to local history by being a 
part and parcel of Mr. Ricketts’ mail route. 


MOUNTED ON PEGASUS 

















CHAPTER XIII 

MOUNTED ON PEGASUS 

It was one of the habits and customs of Green- 
acres to open the daily mail up in Mr. Robbins* 
own special room, the big sunny study overlook- 
ing the outer world so widely. 

When they had first planned the rooms, it had 
been decided that the large south chamber should 
be Father’s own special corner. From its four 
windows he could look down on the little bridge 
and brown rock dam above with its plunging 
waterfall, and beyond that the widespread lake, 
dotted with islands, reed and alder fringed, that 
narrowed again into Little River farther on. 

“It’s queer,” Doris said once, when winter was 
half over. “Nothing ever really looks dead up 
here. Even with the grass and leaves all dried 
up, the trees and earth look kind of reddish, you 
know what I mean, Mother, warm like.” 

And they did too, whether it was from the rich 
russets of the oaks that refused to leave their 
twigs until spring, or the green laurel under- 


226 JEAN OF GREENACRES 


neath, or the rich pines above, or the sorrel tinted 
earth itself, the land never seemed to lose its 
ruddy glow except when mantled with snow. 

Mr. Robbins stood at a window now, his hands 
behind his back, looking out at the valley as they 
came upstairs. 

“Do you know, dear,” he remarked. “I think 
I just saw some wild geese over on that first 
island, probably resting for the trip north over- 
night. That means an early spring. And there 
was a woodpecker on the maple tree this morning 
too. That is all my news. What have you 
brought?” 

Everyone settled down to personal enjoyment 
of the mail. There was always plenty of it, let- 
ters, papers, new catalogues, and magazines, and 
it furnished the main diversion of the day. 

Jean read hers over, seated in the wide window 
nook. Bab’s letter was full of the usual studio 
gossip, and begging her to come for a visit at 
Easter. But Cousin Beth’s letter was brimful 
of the coming trip. She wrote she would meet 
Jean in Boston, and they would motor over if 
the roads were good. 

“Plan on staying at least two months, for it 
will be work as well as play. I was afraid you 
might be lonely with just us, so I have invited 


MOUNTED ON PEGASUS 227 


Carlota to spend her week ends here. You will 
like her, I am sure. She is a young girl we met 
last year in Sorrento. Her father is an Ameri- 
can sculptor and married a really lovely Contessa. 
They are deep in the war relief work now, and 
have sent Carlota over here to study and learn 
the ways of her father’s country. She is staying 
with her aunt, the Contessa di Tambolini, the 
oddest, dearest, little old grande dame you can 
imagine. You want to call her the Countess 
Tambourine all the time, she tinkles so. It just 
suits her, she is so gay and whimsical and bril- 
liant. Come soon, and don’t bother about buying 
a lot of new clothes. I warn you that you will be 
in a paint smock most of the time.” 

“I wonder what her other name is,” Jean said, 
folding up the letter. “One of our teachers at 
the Art Class in New York was telling us her 
memories of Italy, and she mentioned some 
American sculptor who had married an Italian 
countess and lived in a wonderful old villa at 
Sorrento, of a dull warm tan color, with terraces 
and rose gardens and fountains, and nice crumbly 
stone seats. She went to several of his recep- 
tions. Wouldn’t it be odd if he turned out to be 
Carlota’s father. It’s such a little world, isn’t 
it, Father?” 


228 JEAN OF GREENACRES 


“We live in circles, dear,” Mr. Robbins smiled 
over the wide library table at her flushed eager 
face. “Little eddies of congeniality where we 
are constantly finding others with the same tastes 
and ways of living. Here’s a letter from Ralph, 
saying they will start east in May, and stay along 
through the summer, taking Mrs. Hancock and 
Piney back with them.” 

“Piney’ll simply adore the trip way out west,” 
exclaimed Jean. “She’s hardly talked of any- 
thing else all winter but his promise to take them 
there, and Mrs. Hancock’s just the opposite. 
She declares her heart is buried right up in the 
little grave yard behind the church in the Han- 
cock and Trowbridge plot.” 

“She’ll go as long as both children are happy,” 
Mrs. Robbins said. “She has an odd little vein 
of sentiment in her that makes her cling to the 
land she knows best and to shrink from the un- 
known and untried, but I’m sure she’ll go. She’s 
such a quiet, retiring little country mother to 
have two wild swans like Honey and Piney, who 
are regular adventurers. I’ll drive over and 
have a talk with her as soon as my own bird of 
passage is on her way.” 

Wednesday of the following week was set for 
Jean’s flitting. This gave nearly a week for 


MOUNTED ON PEGASUS 229 


preparations, and Kit plunged into them with a 
zest and vigor that made Jean laugh. 

“Well, so little ever happens up here we just 
have to make the most of goings and comings,” 
said Kit, warmly. “And besides, I’m rather 
fond of you, you blessed, skinny old dear, you.” 

“Of course, we’re all glad for you,” Helen put 
in in her serious way. “It’s an opportunity. 
Mother says, and I suppose we’ll all get one in 
time.” 

Jean glanced up as they sat around the table 
the last evening, planning and talking. Out in 
the side entry stood her trunk, packed, locked, 
and strapped, ready for the early trip in the 
morning. Doris was trying her best to nurse a 
frost bitten chicken back to life out by the kitchen 
stove, where Joe mended her skates for her, but 
Kit and Helen were freely bestowing advice on 
the departing one. 

“Enjoy yourself all you can, but think of us 
left at home and don’t stay too long,” advised 
Helen. “I feel like the second mermaid.” 

“What on earth do you mean by the second 
mermaid?” asked Kit. 

“Don’t you see? I’m not the youngest, so I’m 
second from the youngest, and in ‘The Little 
Mermaid’ there were sixteen sisters and each had 


230 JEAN OF GREENACRES 


to wait her turn till her fifteenth birthday before 
she could go up to the surface of the sea, and sit 
on a rock in the moonlight. ,, 

“Pretty chilly this kind of weather,” Jean 
laughed. “Can’t I wear a sealskin wrapped 
around me, please, Helenita?” 

“No, she only had seaweed draperies and neck- 
laces of pearls,” Helen answered, thoughtfully. 

“I shall remember,” Jean declared. “I’d love 
to use that idea as a basis for a gown some time, 
seaweed green trailing silk, and long strands of 
pearls. If I fail as an artist, I shall devote my- 
self to designing wonderful personality gowns 
for people, not everyday people, but exceptional 
ones. Think, Kit, of having some great singer 
come to your studio, and you listen to her warble 
for hours, while you lie on a stately divan and 
try to catch her personality note for a gown.” 

“I don’t want to make things for people,” Kit 
said, emphatically. “I want to soar alone. I’m 
going with Piney to live in the dreary wood, like 
the Robber Baron. I’ll wear leather clothes. I 
love them. I’ve always wanted a whole dress of 
softest suede in dull hunter’s green. No fringe 
or beads, just a dress. It could lace up one side, 
and be so handy.” 

“Specially if a grasshopper got down your 


MOUNTED ON PEGASUS 231 


neck,” Doris added sagely. “I can just see Kit 
all alone in the woods then.” 

They laughed at the voice from the kitchen, 
and Kit dropped the narrow silk sport tie she 
was putting the finishing stitches to. 

“Oh, dear, I do envy you, Jean, after all. 
You must write and tell us every blessed thing 
that happens, for we’ll love to hear it all. Don’t 
be afraid it won’t be interesting. I wish you’d 
even keep a diary. Shad says his grand- 
mother did, every day from the time she was 
fourteen, and she was eighty-six when she died. 
They had an awful time burning them all up, 
just barrels of diaries. Shad says. All the his- 
tory of Gilead.” 

Kit’s tone held a note of pathos that was 
delicious. 

“Who cares about what’s happened in Gilead 
every day for seventy years?” Helen’s query was 
scoffing, but Jean said, 

“Listen. Somebody, I forget who, that 
Father was telling about, said if the poorest, 
commonest human being who ever lived could 
write a perfect account of his daily life, it would 
be the most wonderful and interesting human 
document ever written.” 

Helen’s expression showed plainly that she did 


232 JEAN OF GREENACRES 


not believe one bit in “sech sentiments,” as Shad 
himself might have put it. Life was an undis- 
covered country of enchantment to her where the 
sunlight of romance made everything rose and 
gold. She had always been the most detached 
one in the family. Only Kit with her straight- 
forward, uncompromising tactics ever seemed to 
really get by the thicket of thorns around the 
inner palace of the sleeping beauty. Kit had 
been blessed with so much of her father’s New 
England directness and sense of humor, that no 
thorns could hold her out, while Doris and J ean 
were more like their mother, tender-hearted and 
keenly responsive to every influence around them. 

“I don’t see,” Kit would say sometimes, “which 
side of the family Helen gets her ways from. I 
suppose if we could only trace back far enough, 
we’d find some princess ancestress who trailed 
her velvet gowns lightsomely over the morning 
dew and rode a snow white palfrey down forest 
glades for heavy exercise. Fair Yoland with the 
Golden Hair.” 

“Anyway,” Helen said now, hanging over 
Jean’s chair, “be sure and write us all about 
Carlota and the Contessa, because they sound 
like a story.” 


MOUNTED ON PEGASUS 233 


Doris came out of the kitchen with her finger 
to her lips. 

“I’ve just this minute got that chicken to sleep. 
They’re such light sleepers, but I think it will 
get well. It only had its poor toes frost bitten. 
Joe found it on the ground this morning, crowded 
off the perch. Chickens look so civilized, and 
they’re not a bit. They’re regular savages.” 

She sat down on the arm of Jean’s chair, and 
hugged the other side, with Helen opposite. 
And there flashed across Jean’s mind the picture 
of the evenings ahead without the home circle, 
without the familiar living-room, and the other 
room upstairs where at this time the Motherbird 
would be brushing out her long, soft hair, and 
listening to some choice bit of reading Mr. Rob- 
bins had run across during the day and saved for 
her. 

“I just wish I had a chance to go west like 
Piney,” Kit said suddenly. “When I’m old 
enough, I’m going to take up a homestead claim 
and live on it with a wonderful horse and some 
dogs, wolf dogs, I think. I wish Piney’d wait 
till we were both old enough, and had finished 
school. She could be a forest ranger and I’d 
raise — ” 


234 JEAN OF GREENACRES 


“Ginseng,” J ean suggested, mischievously. 
“Goose. It takes far more courage than that 
just to stick it out on one of these old barren 
farms, all run down and fairly begging for some- 
body to take them in hand and love them back to 
beauty. What do you want to hunt a western 
claim for?” 

“Space,” Kit answered grandly. “I don’t 
want to see my neighbors’ chimney pots sticking 
up all around me through the trees. I want to 
gaze off at a hundred hill tops, and not see some- 
body’s scarecrow waggling empty sleeves at me. 
Piney and I have the spirits of eagles.” 

“Isn’t that nice,” said Helen, pleasantly. 
“It’ll make such a good place to spend our vaca- 
tions, girls. While Piney and Kit are out soar- 
ing, we can fish and tramp and have really 
pleasant times.” 

“Come on, girls,” J ean whispered, as Kit’s ire 
started to rise. “It’s getting late now, truly, and 
I have to rise while it is yet night, you know. 
Good night all.” 

She held the lamp at the foot of the stairs to 
light the procession up to their rooms, then went 
out into the kitchen. Shad sat over the kitchen 
stove, humming softly under his breath an old 
camp meeting hymn, 


MOUNTED ON PEGASUS 235 


“Swing low, sweet chariot. 

Bound for to carry me home. 

Swing low, sweet chariot. 

Tell them I’ll surely come.** 

“Good night, Shad,” she said. “And do be 
sure and remember what I told you. Joe’s such 
a little fellow. Don’t you scold him and make 
him run away again, will you, even if he is 
aggravating.” 

“I’ll be good to him, I promise, Miss Jean,” 
Shad promised solemnly. “I let my temper run 
away from me that day, but I’ve joined the 
church since then, and being a professor of re- 
ligion I’ve got to walk softly all the days of my 
life, Mis’ Ellis says. Don’t you worry. Joe 
and me’s as thick as two peas in a pod. I’ll be 
a second grand uncle to him before I get 
through.” 

So it rested. Joe was still inclined to be a 
little perverse where Shad was concerned, and 
would sulk when scolded. Only Jean had been 
able to make him see the error of his ways. He 
would tell the others he guessed he’d run away. 
But Jean had promptly talked to him, and said 
if he wanted to run away, to run along any time 
he felt like it. Joe had looked at her in surprise 
and relief when she had said it, and had seemed 


236 JEAN OF GREENACRES 


completely satisfied about staying thereafter. 
It was Cousin Roxy who had given her the idea. 

“I had a colt once that was possessed to jump 
fences and go rambling, so one day after we’d 
been on the run hunting for it nearly every day, 
I told Hiram to let all the bars down, and never 
mind the pesky thing. And it was so nonplussed 
and surprised that it gave right up and stayed to 
home. It may be fun jumping fences, but 
there’s no real excitement in stepping over open 
bars.” 

So J oe had faced open bars for some time, and 
if he could only get along with Shad, Jean knew 
he would be safe while she was away. He was 
an odd child, undemonstrative and shy, but there 
was something appealing and sympathetic about 
him, and Jean always felt he was her special 
charge since she had coaxed him away from Mr. 
Briggs. 

The start next morning was made at seven, 
before the sun was up. Princess was breathing 
frostily, and side stepping restlessly. The tears 
were wet on J ean’s cheeks as she climbed into the 
seat beside Shad, and turned to wave goodbye 
to the group on the veranda. She had not felt 
at all this way when she had left for New York 
to visit Bab, but someway this did seem, as the 


MOUNTED ON PEGASUS 237 


Motherbird had said, like her first real flight from 
the home nest. 

“Write us everything,” called Kit, waving 
both hands to her. 

“Come back soon,” wailed Doris, and Helen, 
running as Kit would have put it, true to form, 
added her last message, 

“Let us know if you meet the Contessa.” 

But the Motherbird went back into the house 
in silence, away from the sitting-room into a little 
room at the side where Jean had kept her own 
bookcase, desk, and a few choice pictures. A 
volume of Browning selections, bound in soft 
limp tan, lay beside J ean’s old driving gloves on 
the table. Mrs. Robbins picked up both, laid her 
cheek against the gloves and closed her eyes. 
The years were racing by so fast, so fast, she 
thought, and mothers must be wide eyed and 
generous and fearless, when the children sud- 
denly began to top heads with one, and feel their 
wings. She opened the little leather book to a 
marked passage of Jean’s, 

“The swallow has set her young on the rail.’* 

Ready for the flight, she thought. If it had 
been Kit now, she would not have felt this curious 
little pang. Kit was self sufficient and full of 


238 JEAN OF GREENACRES 


buoyancy that was bound to carry her over 
obstacles, but Jean was sensitive and dependent 
on her environment for spur and stimulation. 
She heard a step behind her and turned eagerly 
as Mr. Robbins came into the room, seeking her. 
He saw the book and the gloves in her hand, and 
the look in her eyes uplifted to his own. Very 
gently he folded his arms around her, his cheek 
pressed close to her brown hair. 

“ She’s only seventeen,” whispered the Mother- 
bird. 

“Eighteen in April,” he answered. “And 
dear, she isn’t trusting to her own strength for 
the flight. Don’t you know this quiet little girl 
of ours is mounted on Pegasus, and riding him 
handily in her upward trend?” 

But there was no winged horse or genius in 
view to Jean’s blurred sight as she watched the 
road unroll before her, and looking back, saw 
only the curling smoke from Greenacres’ white 
chimneys. 




CARLOTA 















CHAPTER XIV, 


CABLOTA 

“I thought you lived in a farmhouse too, 
Cousin Beth,” Jean said, in breathless admira- 
tion, as she laid aside her outer wraps, and stood 
in the big living-room at Twin Oaks. The beau- 
tiful country house had been a revelation to her. 
It seemed to combine all of the home comfort and 
good cheer of Greenacres with the modern air 
and improvements of the homes at the Cove. 
Sitting far back from the broad road in its stately 
grounds, it was like some reserved but gracious 
old colonial dame bidding you welcome. 

The center hall had a blazing fire in the high 
old rock fireplace, and Queen Bess, a prize 
winning Angora, opened her wide blue eyes at 
the newcomer, but did not stir. In the living- 
room was another open fire, even while the house 
was heated with hot air. There were flowering 
plants at the windows, and freshly cut roses on 
the tables in tall jars. 

“You know, or maybe you don’t know,” said 


242 JEAN OF GREENACRES 


Cousin Beth, “that we have one hobby here, 
raising flowers, and specially roses. We exhibit 
every year, and you’ll grow to know them and 
love the special varieties just as I do. You have 
no idea, Jean, of the thrill when you find a new 
bloom different from all the rest.” 

“I wouldn’t be surprised to find out anything 
new and wonderful about this place,” J ean 
laughed, leaning back in a deep seated armchair. 
Like the rest of the room’s furniture it wore a 
gown of chintz, deep cream, cross barred in dull 
apple green, with lovely, splashy pink roses scat- 
tered here and there. Two large white Polar 
rugs lay on the polished floor. 

“If those were not members of the Peabody 
family, old and venerated, they never would be 
allowed to bask before my fire,” Cousin Beth 
said. “But way back there was an Abner Pea- 
body who sailed the Polar seas, and used to bring 
back trophies and bestow them on members of 
his family as future heirlooms. Consequently, 
we fall over these bears in the dark, and bless 
great-grandfather Abner’s precious memory.” 

After she was thoroughly toasted and had 
drunk a cup of Russian tea, Jean found her way 
up to the room that was to be hers during her 
visit. It was the sunniest kind of a retreat in 


CARLOTA 


243 


daffodil yellow and oak brown. The furniture 
was all in warm deep toned ivory, and there were 
rows of blossoming daffodils and jonquils along 
the windowsills. 

“Oh, I think this is just darling,” Jean gasped, 
standing in the middle of the floor and gazing 
around happily. “It’s as if spring were already 
here.” 

“I put a drawing board and easel here for you 
too,” Cousin Beth told her. “Of course you’ll 
use my studio any time you like, but it’s handy 
to have a corner all your own at odd times. 
Carlota will be here tomorrow and her room is 
right across the hall. She has inherited all of her 
father’s talent, so I know how congenial you will 
be. And you’ll do each other a world of good.” 

“How?” 

“Well, you’re thoroughly an American girl, 
Jean, and Carlota is half Italian. You’ll under- 
stand what I mean when you see her. She is 
high strung and temperamental, and you are so 
steady nerved and well balanced.” 

Jean thought over this last when she was alone, 
and smiled to herself. Why on earth did one 
have to give outward and visible signs of tempera- 
ment, she wondered, before people believed one 
had sensitive feelings or responsive^ emotions? 


244 JEAN OF GREENACRES 


Must one wear one’s heart on one’s sleeve, so to 
speak, for a sort of personal barometer? Bab 
was high strung and temperamental too; so was 
Kit. They both indulged now and then in men- 
tal fireworks, but nobody took them seriously, or 
considered it a mark of genius. She felt just a 
shade of half amused tolerance towards this 
Carlota person who was to get any balance or 
poise out of her own nature. 

“If Cousin Beth knew for one minute,” she 
told the face in the round mirror of the dresser, 
“what kind of a person you really are, she’d 
never, never trust you to balance anybody’s 
temperament.” 

But the following day brought a trim, closed 
car to the door, and out stepped Carlota and her 
maid, a middle aged Florentine woman who 
rarely smiled excepting at her charge. 

And J ean coming down the wide center flight 
of stairs saw Cousin Beth before the fire with a 
tall, girlish figure, very slender, and all in black, 
even to the wide velvet ribbon on her long dark 
braid of hair. 

“This is my cousin Jean,” said Mrs. Newell, 
in her pleasant way. She laid Carlota’s slim, 
soft hand in Jean’s. “I want you two girls to 
be very good friends.” 


CARLOTA 


245 


“But I know, surely, we shall be,” Carlota ex- 
claimed. And at the sound of her voice Jean’s 
prejudices melted. She had very dark eyes with 
lids that drooped at the outer corners, a rather 
thin face and little eager pointed chin. Jean 
tried and tried to think who it was she made her 
think of, and then remembered. It was the little 
statuette of Le Brun, piquant and curious. 

“Now, you will not be treated one bit as guests, 
girls,” Cousin Beth told them. “You must come 
and go as you like, and have the full freedom of 
the house. I keep my own study hours and like 
to be alone then. Do as you like and be happy. 
Run along, both of you.” 

“She is wonderful, isn’t she?” Carlota said as 
they went upstairs together. “She makes me feel 
always as if I were a ship waiting with loose sails, 
and all at once — a breeze — and I am on my way 
again. You have not been to Sorrento, have 
you? You can see the little fisher boats from 
our terraces. It is all so beautiful, but now the 
villa is turned into a hospital. Pippa’s brothers 
and father are all at the front. Her father is 
old, but he would go. She’s glad she’s an old 
maid, she says, for she has no husband to grieve 
over. Don’t you like her? She was my nurse 
when I was born.” 


246 JEAN OF GREENACRES 


“Her face reminds one of a Sybil. There’s 
one — I forget which — who was middle aged in- 
stead of being old and wrinkled.” 

“My father has used Pippa’s head often. 
One I like best is ‘The Melon Vendor.’ That 
was exhibited in Paris and won the Salon medal. 
And it was so odd. Pippa did not feel at all 
proud. She said it was only the magic of his 
fingers that had made the statue a success, and 
father said it was the inspiration from Pippa’s 
face.” 

“I wonder if you ever knew Bab Crane. 
She’s a Long Island girl from the Cove where 
we used to live, and she’s lived abroad every year 
for two or three months with her mother. She 
is an artist.” 

“I don’t know her,” Carlota shook her head 
doubtfully. “You see over there, while we enter- 
tained a great deal, I was in a convent and 
scarcely met anyone excepting in the summer- 
time, and then we went to my aunt’s villa up on 
Lake Maggiore. Oh, but that is the most beau- 
tiful spot of all. There is one island there called 
Isola Bella. I wish I could carry it right over 
here with me and set it down for you to see. It 
is all terraces and splendid old statuary, and 





Jean Curled Her Slippered Feet Under Her as She Sat on the 

Window Seat See page 247 









































































































































CARLOTA 


247 


when you see it at sunrise it is like a jewel, it 
glows so with color.” 

J ean curled her slippered feet under her as she 
sat on the window seat, listening. There was 
always a lingering love in her heart for the 
“haunts of ancient peace” in Europe’s beauty 
spots, and especially for Italy. Somewhere she 
had read, it was called the “sweetheart of the 
nations.” 

“I’d love to go there,” she said now, with a 
little sigh. 

“And that is what I was always saying when 
I was there, and my father told me of this coun- 
try. I wanted to see it so. He would tell me of 
the great gray hills that climb to the north, and 
the craggy broken shoreline up through Maine, 
and the little handful of amethyst isles that lie 
all along it. He was born in New Hampshire, 
at Portsmouth. We are going up to see the 
house some day, but I know just what it looks 
like. It stands close down by the water’s edge 
in the old part of the town, and there is a big 
rambling garden with flagged walks. His grand- 
father was a ship builder and sent them out, oh, 
like argosies I think, all over the world, until 
the steamboats came, and his trade was gone. 


248 JEAN OF GREENACRES 


And he had just one daughter, Petunia. Isn’t 
that a beautiful name, Petunia Pomeroy. It is 
all one romance, I think, but I coax him to tell 
it to me over and over. There was an artist who 
came up from the south in one of his ships, and 
he was taken very ill. So they took him in as a 
guest, and Petunia cared for him. And when he 
was well, what do you think?” She clasped her 
hands around her knees and rocked back and 
forth, sitting on the floor before her untouched 
suitcases. 

“They married.” 

“But more than that,” warmly. “He carved 
the most wonderful figureheads for my great 
grandfather’s ships. All over the world they 
were famous. His son was my father.” 

It was indescribable, the tone in which she said 
the last. It told more than anything else how 
dearly she loved this sculptor father of hers. 
That night Jean wrote to Kit. The letter on her 
arrival had been to the Motherbird, but this was 
a chat with the circle she knew would read it over 
around the sitting room lamp. 

Dear Kit: 

I know you’ll all be hungry for news. We motored out 
from Boston, and child, when I saw the quaint old New 
England homestead we had imagined, I had to blink my 


CARLOTA 


249 


eyes. It looks as if it belonged right out on the North 
Shore at the Cove. It is a little like Longfellow’s home, 
only glorified — not by fame as yet, though that will come 
— by Greek wings. I don’t mean Nike wings. There are 
sweeping porticos on each side where the drive winds 
around. And inside it is summertime even now. They 
have flowers everywhere, and raise roses. Kit, if you 
could get one whiff of their conservatory, you would become 
a Persian rose worshipper. When I come back, we’re 
going to start a sunken rose garden, not with a few old 
worn out bushes, but new slips and cuttings. 

Carlota arrived the day after I did. She looks like the 
little statuette of Le Brun on Mother’s bookcase, only her 
hair hangs in two long braids. She is more Italian than 
American in her looks, but seems to be very proud of her 
American father. Helen would love her ways. She has 
a maid, Pippa, from Florence, middle aged, who used to 
be her nurse. Isn’t that medieval and Juliet-like? But 
she wears black and white continually, no gorgeous raiment 
at all, black in the daytime, white for evening. I feel like 
Pierrette beside her, but Cousin Beth says the girls of our 
age dress very simply abroad. 

The Contessa is coming out to spend the week end with 
us, and will take Carlota and me back with her for a few 
days. I’ll tell you all about her next time. We go for a 
long trip in the car every day, but it is awfully cold and 
bleak still. I feel exactly like Queen Bess, the Angora 
cat, I want to hug the fires all the time, and Carlota says 
she can’t bear our New England winters. At this time of 
the year, she says spring has come in Tuscany and all 
along the southern coast. She has inherited her father’s 


250 JEAN OF GREENACRES 


gift for modelling, and gave me a little figurine of a fisher 
boy standing on his palms, for a paper weight. It is per- 
fect. I wish I could have it cast in bronze. You know, 
I think I’d rather be a sculptor than a painter. Someway 
the figures seem so full of life, but then. Cousin Beth says, 
they lack color. 

I mustn’t start talking shop to you when your head is 
full of forestry. Let me know how Piney takes to the 
idea of going west, and be sure and remember to feed 
Cherilee. Dorrie will think of her chickens and neglect 
the canary sure. And help Mother all you can. 

With love to all, 

Jean. 

“Humph,” said Kit, loftily, when the letter 
arrived and was duly digested by the circle. “I 
suppose J ean feels as if the whole weight of this 
household rested on her anxious young shoul- 
ders.” 

“Well, we do miss her awfully,” Doris hurried 
to say. “But the canary is all right.” 

“Yes, and so is everything else. Wait till I 
write to my elder sister and relieve her mind. 
Let her cavort gaily in motor cars, and live side 
by each with Angora cats in the lap of luxury. 
Who cares? The really great ones of the earth 
have dwelt in penury and loneliness on the soli- 
tary heights.” 

“You look so funny brandishing that dish 


CARLOTA 


251 


towel, and spouting, Kit,” Helen said, placidly. 
“I’m sure I can understand how Jean feels and 
I like it. It is odd about Carlota wearing 
black and white, isn’t it? I wish Jean had told 
more about her. I shall always imagine her in a 
little straight gown of dull violet velvet, with a 
cap of pearls.” 

“Isn’t that nice? How do you imagine me, 
Helenita darling?” Kit struck a casual attitude 
while she wiped the pudding dish. 

“You’d make a nice Atalanta, the girl who 
raced for the golden apples, or some pioneer 
girl.” 

“There’s a stretch of fancy for you, from 
ancient Greece to Indian powwow times. Run 
tell Shad to take up more logs to Father’s room, 
or the astral spirit of our sweet sister will perch 
on our bedposts tonight and rail at us right 
lustily.” 

“What’s that?” asked Doris, inquisitively. 
“What’s an astral spirit?” 

Kit screwed her face up till it looked like 
Cynthy Allan’s, and prowled towards the 
youngest of the family with portentous gestures. 

“ ’Tain’t a ghost, and ’tain’t a spook, and 
’tain’t a banshee. It’s the shadow of your self 
when you’re sound asleep, and it goeth questing 


252 JEAN OF GREENACRES 


forth on mischief bent. Yours hovers over the 
chicken coops all night long, Dorrie, and mine 
flits out to the eagles’ nests on mountain tops, 
and Helenita’s digs into old chests of romance, 
and hauls out caskets of jewels and scented 
gowns by ye hundreds.” 

“There’s the milk,” called Shad’s voice from 
the entry way, “Better strain it right off and 
get it into the pans. Mrs. Gorham’s gone to 
bed with her neuralgy.” 

Dorrie giggled outright at the interruption, 
but Kit hurried to the rescue with the linen 
straining cloth. It took more than neuralgia 
to shake the mettle of a Robbins these days. 


AT MOREL’S STUDIO 


I 


% 


CHAPTER XV 

AT MOREL’S STUDIO 

“I’ve just had a telephone message from the 
Contessa,” Cousin Beth said at breakfast Satur- 
day morning. “She sends an invitation to us 
for this afternoon, a private view of paintings 
and sculpture at Henri Morel’s studio. She 
knew him in Italy and France, and he leaves 
for New York on Monday. There will be a 
little reception and tea, nothing too formal for 
you girls, so dress well, hold up your chins and 
turn out your toes, and behave with credit to 
your chaperon. It is your debut.” 

Carlota looked at her quite seriously, thinking 
she was in earnest, but Jean always caught the 
flutter of fun in her eyes, and knew it would not 
be as ceremonious as it sounded. When she was 
ready that afternoon she slipped into Cousin 
Beth’s own little den at the south end of the 
house. Here were three rooms, all so different, 
and each showing a distinct phase of character. 
One was her winter studio. The summer one 


256 JEAN OF GREENACRES 


was built out in the orchard. This was a large 
sunny room, panelled in soft toned oak, with a 
wood brown rug on the floor, and all the 
treasures accumulated abroad during her years 
there of study and travel. In this room Jean 
used to find the girl Beth, who had ventured 
forth after the laurels of genius, and found suc- 
cess waiting her with love, back in little Weston. 

The second room was a private sitting-room, 
all willow furniture, and dainty chintz coverings, 
with Dutch tile window boxes filled with bloom- 
ing hyacinths, and feminine knick-knacks scat- 
tered about helterskelter. Here were framed 
photographs of loved ones and friends, a portrait 
of Elliott over the desk, his class colors on the 
wall, and intimate little kodak snapshots he had 
sent her. This was the mother’s and wife’s 
room. And the last was her bedroom. Here 
Jean found her dressing. All in deep smoke 
gray velvet, with a bunch of single petaled violets 
on her coat. She turned and looked at Jean 
critically. 

“I only had this new serge suit,” said Jean. 
“I thought with a sort of fluffy waist it would 
be right to wear.” 

The waist was a soft crinkly crepe silk in dull 
old gold, with a low collar of rose point, and just 


AT MOREL’S STUDIO 


257 


a touch of Byzantine embroidery down the front. 
Above it, Jean’s eager face framed in her brown 
hair, her brown eyes, small imperative chin with 
its deep cleft, and look of interest that Kit called 
“questioning curiosity,” all seemed accentuated. 

“It’s just right, dear,” said Cousin Beth. 
“Go get a yellow jonquil to wear. Carlota will 
have violets, I think. She loves them best.” 

There was a scent of coming spring in the air 
as they motored along the country roads, just a 
delicate reddening of the maple twigs, and a 
mist above the lush marshes down in the lower 
meadows. Once Carlota called out joyously. 
A pair of nesting bluebirds teetered on a fence 
rail, talking to each other of spring house- 
keeping. 

“Ah, there they are,” she cried. “And in 
Italy now there will be spring everywhere. My 
father told me of the bluebirds here. He said 
they were bits of heaven’s own blue with wings 
on.” 

“How queer it is,” Jean said, “I mean the 
way one remembers and loves all the little things 
about one’s own country.” 

“Not so much all the country. Just the spot 
of earth you spring from. He loves this New 
England.” 


258 JEAN OF GREENACRES 


“And I love Long Island. I was born there, 
not at the Cove, but farther down the coast near 
Montauk Point, and the smell of salt water and 
the marshes always stirs me. I love the long 
green rolling stretches, and the little low hills in 
the background like you see in paintings of the 
Channel Islands and some of the ones along the 
Scotch coast. Just a few straggly scrub pines, 
you know, and the willows and wild cherry trees 
and beach plums.” 

“Somewhere I’ve read about that, girls; the 
old earth’s hold upon her children. I’m afraid 
I only respond to gray rocks and all of this sort 
of thing. I’ve been so homesick abroad just to 
look at a crooked apple tree in bloom that I 
didn’t know what to do. Each man to his ‘ain 
acre.’ Where were you born, Carlota?” 

“At the Villa Marina. Ah, but you should 
see it.” Carlota’s dark face glowed with love 
and pride. “It is dull terra cotta color, and 
then dull green too, the mold of ages, I think, 
like the under side of an olive leaf, and flowers 
everywhere, and poplars in long avenues. My 
father laughs at our love for it, and says it 
is just a mouldy old ruin, but every summer 
we spend there. Some day perhaps you could 
come to see us, Jean. Would they lend her 


AT MOREL’S STUDIO 


259 


to us for a while, do you think, Mrs. Newell?” 

“After the sick soldiers have all been sent 
home well,” said Jean. “I should love to. Isn’t 
it fun building air castles?” 

“They are very substantial things,” Cousin 
Beth returned, whimsically. “Hopes to me are 
so tangible. We just set ahead of us the big 
hope, and the very thought gives us incentive and 
endeavor and what Elliott calls in his boy 
fashion, ‘punch.’ Plan from now on, Jean, for 
one spring in Italy. I’m scheming deeply, you 
know, or perhaps you haven’t even guessed yet, 
to get you a couple of years’ study here, then at 
least one abroad, and after that, you shall try 
your own strength.” 

“Wouldn’t it be awful if I turned out just 
ordinary!” Jean said with her characteristic 
truthfulness. “I remember one girl down at 
the Cove, Len Marden. We went through 
school together, and her people said she was a 
musical genius. She studied all the time, really 
and truly. She was just a martyr, and she liked 
it. They had plenty of means to give her every 
chance, and she studied harmony in one city 
abroad, and then something in another city, and 
something else in another. We always used to 
wonder where Len was trying her scales. Her 


260 JEAN OF GREENACRES 


name was Leonora, and she used to dread it. 
Why, her father even retired from business, just 
to give his time up to watching over Len, and 
her mother was like a Plymouth Rock hen, 
brooding over her. Well, she came back last 
fall, and just ran away and married one of the 
boys from the Cove, and she says she doesn’t 
give a rap for a career.” 

Cousin Beth and Carlota both laughed heartily 
at Jean’s seriousness. 

“She has all of my sympathy,” the former de- 
clared. “I don’t think a woman is able to give 
her greatest powers to the world if she is gifted 
unusually, until she has known love and mother- 
hood. I hope Leonora finds her way back to 
the temple of genius with twins clinging to her 
wing tips.” 

It was just a little bit late when they arrived 
at the Morel studio. Jean had expected it to 
be more of the usual workshop, like Daddy Hig- 
ginson’s for instance, where canvases heaped 
against the walls seemed to have collected the 
dust of ages, and a broom would have been a 
desecration. Here, you ascended in an elevator, 
from an entrance hall that Cousin Beth declared 
always made her think of the tomb of the 
Pharoahs in “Aida.” 


AT MOREL’S STUDIO 


261 


“All it needs is a nice view of the Nile by 
moonlight, and some tall lilies in full bloom, and 
someone singing ‘Celeste Aida,’ ” she told the 
girls when they alighted at the ninth floor, and 
found themselves in the long vestibule of the 
Morel studio. Jean had rather a confused idea 
of what followed. There was the meeting with 
Morel himself. Stoop shouldered and thin, with 
his vivid foreign face, half closed eyes, and odd 
moustache like a mandarin’s. And near him 
Madame Morel, with a wealth of auburn hair 
and big dark eyes. She heard Carlota say just 
before they were separated, 

“He loves to paint red hair, and Aunt Signa 
says she has the most wonderful hair you ever 
saw, like Melisande.” 

Cousin Beth had been taken possession of by 
a stout smiling young man with eyeglasses and 
was already the center of a little group. Jean 
heard his name, and recognized it as that of a 
famous illustrator. Carlota introduced her to 
a tall girl in brown whom she had met in Italy, 
and then somehow, Jean could not have told how 
it happened, they drifted apart. Not but what 
she was glad of a breathing spell, just a chance 
as Shad would have said, to get her bearings. 
Morel was showing some recent canvases, still 


262 JEAN OF GREENACRES 


unframed, at the end of the studio, and everyone 
seemed to gravitate that way. 

Jean found a quiet corner near a tall Chinese 
screen. Somebody handed her fragrant tea in 
a little red and gold cup, and she was free to 
look around her. A beautiful woman had just 
arrived. She was tall and past first youth, but 
Jean leaned forward expectantly. This must be 
the Contessa. Her gown seemed as indefinite 
and elusive in detail as a cloud. It was dull 
violet color, with a gleam of gold here and there 
as she moved slowly towards Morel’s group. 
Under a wide brimmed hat of violet, you saw the 
lifted face, with tired lovely eyes, and close 
waves of pale golden hair. And this was not 
all. Oh, if only Helen could have seen her, 
thought Jean, with a funny little reversion to the 
home circle. She tiad wanted a princess from 
real life, or a contessa, anything that was 
tangibly romantic and noble, and here was the 
very pattern of a princess, even to a splendid 
white stag hound which followed her with docile 
eyes and drooping long nose. 

“My dear, would you mind coaxing that 
absent-minded girl at the tea table to part with 
some lemon for my tea? And the Roquefort 
sandwiches are excellent too.” 


AT MOREL’S STUDIO 


263 


Jean turned at the sound of the new voice 
beside her. There on the same settee sat a 
robust, middle-aged late comer. Her satin coat 
was worn and frayed, her hat altogether too 
youthful with its pink and mauve butterflies 
veiled in net. It did make one think of poor 
Cynthy and her yearnings towards roses. Jean 
saw, too, that there was a button missing from her 
gown, and her collar was pinned at a wrong 
angle, but the collar was real lace and the pin 
was of old pearls. It was her face that charmed. 
Framed in an indistinct mass of fluffy hair, gray 
and blonde mixed, with a turned up, winning 
mouth, and delightfully expressive eyes, it was 
impossible not to feel immediately interested and 
acquainted. 

Before they had sat there long, Jean found 
herself indulging in all soHs of confidences. 
They seemed united by a common feeling of, not 
isolation exactly, but newness to this circle. 

“I enjoy it so much more sitting over here 
and looking on,” Jean said. “Cousin Beth 
knows everyone, of course, but it is like a paint- 
ing. You close one eye, and get the group 
effect. And I must remember everything to 
write it home to the girls.” 

“Tell me about these girls. Who are they 


264 JEAN OF GREENACRES 


that you love them so?” asked her new friend. 
“I, too, like the bird’s eye view best. I told 
Morel I did not come to see anything but his 
pictures, and now I am ready for tea and talk.” 

So Jean told all about Greenacres and the 
girls there and before she knew it, she had dis- 
closed too, her own hopes and ambitions, and 
perhaps a glimpse of what it might mean to the 
others still in the nest if she, the first to fly, could 
only make good. And her companion told her, 
in return, of how sure one must be that the spark 
of inspiration is really a divine one and worthy 
of sacrifice, before one gives up all to it. 

“Yonder in France, and in Italy too, but 
mostly in France,” she said, “I have found girls 
like you, my child, from your splendid home- 
land, living on little but hopes, wasting their 
time and what money could be spared them from 
some home over here, following false hopes, and 
sometimes starving. It is but a will-o’-the-wisp, 
this success in art, a sort of pitiful madness that 
takes possession of our brains and hearts and 
makes us forget the daily road of gold that lies 
before us.” 

“But how can you tell for sure?” asked Jean, 
leaning forward anxiously. 

“Who can answer that? I have only pitied 


AT MOREL’S STUDIO 


265 


the ones who could not see they had no genius. 
Ah, my dear, when you meet real genius, then 
you know the difference instantly. It is like the 
real gems and the paste. There is consecration 
and no thought of gain. The work is done 
irresistibly, spontaneously, because they cannot 
help it. They do not think of so called success, 
it is only the fulfillment of their own visions that 
they love. You like to draw and paint, you say, 
and you have studied some in New York. 
.What then?” 

Jean pushed back her hair impulsively. 

“Do you know, I think you are a little bit 
wrong. You won’t mind my saying that, will 
you, please? It is only this. Suppose we are 
not geniuses, we who see pictures in our minds 
and long to paint them. I think that is the gift 
too, quite as much as the other, as the power to 
execute. Think how many go through life with 
eyes blind to all beauty and color I Surely it 
must be something to have the power of seeing 
it all, and of knowing what you want to paint. 
My Cousin Roxy says it’s better to aim at the 
stars and hit the bar post, than to aim at the 
bar post and hit the ground.” 

“Ah, so. And one of your English poets says 
too, ‘A man’s aim should outreach his grasp, or 


266 JEAN OF GREENACRES 


what’s a heaven for?’ Maybe, you are quite 
right. The vision is the gift.” She turned and 
laid her hand on Jean’s shoulder, her eyes beam- 
ing with enjoyment of their talk. “I shall re- 
member you, Brown Eyes.” 

And just at this point Cousin Beth and Car- 
lota came towards them, the former smiling at 
Jean. 

“Don’t you think you’ve monopolized the 
Contessa long enough, young woman?” she 
asked. Jean could not answer. The Contessa, 
this whimsical, oddly gowned woman, who had 
sat and talked with her over their tea in the 
friendliest sort of way, all the time that Jean 
had thought the Contessa was the tall lady in 
the temperamental gown with the stag hound at 
her heels. 

“But this is delightful,” exclaimed the Con- 
tessa, happily. “We have met incognito. I 
thought she was some demure little art student 
who knew no one here, and she has been so kind 
to me, who also seemed lonely. Come now, we 
will meet with the celebrities.” 

With her arm around Jean’s waist, she led her 
over to the group around Morel, and told them 
in her charming way of how they had discovered 
each other. 


AT MOREL’S STUDIO 


267 


“And she has taught me a lesson that you, 
Morel, with all your art, do not know, I am sure. 
It is not the execution that is the crown of am- 
bition and aspiration, it is the vision itself. For 
the vision is divine inspiration, but the execution 
is the groping of the human hand.” 

“Oh, but I never could say it so beautifully,” 
exclaimed Jean, pink cheeked and embarrassed, 
as Morel laid his hand over hers. 

“Nevertheless,” he said, gently, “success to 
thy finger-tips, Mademoiselle.” 



GREENACRE LETTERS 



CHAPTER XVI 

GREEN ACRE LETTERS 

Jean confessed her mistake to Cousin Beth 
after they had returned home. There were just 
a few moments to spare before bedtime, after 
wishing Carlota and her aunt good night, and 
she sat on a little stool before the fire in the 
sitting-room. 

“I hadn’t the least idea she was the Contessa. 
You know that tall woman with the stag hound. 
Cousin Beth — ” 

Mrs. Newell laughed softly, braiding her hair 
down into regular schoolgirl pigtails. 

“That was Betty Goodwin. Betty loves to 
dress up. She plays little parts for herself all 
the time. I think today she was a Russian 
princess perhaps. The next time she will be a 
tailor-made English girl. Betty’s people have 
money enough to indulge her whims, and she has 
just had her portrait done by Morel as a sort of 
dream maiden, I believe. I caught a glimpse of 
it on exhibition last week. Looks as little like 
Betty as I do. Jean, child, paint if you must. 


272 JEAN OF GREENACRES 


but paint the thing as you see it, and do choose 
apple trees and red barns rather than dream 
maidens who aren’t real.” 

“I don’t know what I shall paint,” Jean 
answered, with a little quick sigh. “She rather 
frightened me, I mean the Contessa. She thinks 
only real geniuses should paint.” 

“Nonsense. Paint all you like. You’re 
seventeen, aren’t you, Jean?” 

Jean nodded. “Eighteen in April.” 

“You seem younger than that. If I could, 
I’d swamp you in paint and study for the next 
two years. By that time you would have either 
found out that you were tired to death of it, and 
wanted real life, or you would be doing some- 
thing worth while in the art line. But in any 
event you would have no regrets. I mean you 
could trot along life’s highway contentedly, 
without feeling there was something you had 
missed. It was odd your meeting the Contessa 
as you did. She likes you very much. I wish 
it could be arranged for you to go over to Italy 
in a year, and be under her wing. It’s such a 
broadening experience for you, Jeanie. Per- 
haps I’ll be going myself by then and could take 
you. You would love it as I did, I know. 
There’s a charm and restfulness about old world 


GREENACRE LETTERS 273 


spots that all the war clamour and devastation 
cannot kill. Now run along to bed. Tomor- 
row will be a quiet day. The Contessa likes it 
here because she can relax and as she says ‘invite 
her soul to peace.’ Good night, dear.” 

When J ean reached her own room, she found 
a surprise. On the desk lay a letter from home 
that Minory had laid there. Minory was Cousin 
Beth’s standby, as she said. She was middle 
aged, and had been “help” to the Peabodys ever 
since she was a girl. Matrimony had never at- 
tracted Minory. She had never been known to 
have a sweetheart. She was tall and spare, with 
a broad serene face, and sandy-red hair worn 
parted in the middle and combed smoothly back 
over her ears in old-fashioned style. Her eyes 
were as placid and contented as a cat’s, and 
rather greenish, too, in tint. 

“Minory has reached Nirvana,” Cousin Beth 
would say, laughingly. “She always has a little 
smile on her lips, and says nothing. I’ve never 
seen her angry or discontented. She’s saved her 
earnings and bought property, and supports 
several indigent relatives who have no earthly 
right to her help. Her favorite flower, she says, 
is live forever, as we call it here in New England, 
or the Swiss edelweiss. She’s a faithful Uni- 


274 JEAN OF GREENACRES 


tarian, and her favorite charity is orphan 
asylums. All my life I have looked up to 
Minory and loved her. There’s a poem called 
‘The Washer of the Ford,’ I think it is, and she 
has made me think of it often, for over and over 
at the passing out of dear ones in the family, 
it has been Minory’s hand on my shoulder that 
has steadied me, and her hand that has closed 
their eyes. She stands and holds the candle for 
the rest of us.” 

It was just like her, Jean thought, to lay the 
home letter where it would catch her eye and 
make her happy before she went to sleep. One 
joy of a letter from home was that it turned out 
to be a budget as soon as you got it out of the 
envelope. The one on top was from the Mother- 
bird, written just before the mail wagon came 
up the hill. 

DEAR PRINCESS ROYAL: 

You have been much on my mind, but I haven't time for 
a long letter, as Mr. Ricketts may bob up over the hill any 
minute, and he is like time and tide that wait for no man, 
you know. I am ever so glad your visit has proved a 
happy one. Stay as long as Cousin Beth wants you. 
Father is really quite himself these days, and I have kept 
Mrs. Gorham, so the work has been very easy for me, even 
without my first lieutenant. 

It looks like an early spring, and we expect Ralph and 


GREENACRE LETTERS 275 


Honey from the west in about a week, instead of in May. 
Ralph will probably be our guest for awhile, as Father 
will enjoy his company. The crocuses are up all along the 
garden wall, and the daffodils and narcissus have started 
to send up little green lances through the earth. I have 
never enjoyed the coming of a spring so much as now. 
Perhaps one needs a long bleak winter in order to appre- 
ciate spring. 

Have you everything you need ? Let me know otherwise. 
You know, I always find some way out. A letter came 
for you from Bab which I enclose. Write often to us, my 
eldest fledgling. I feel very near you these days in love 
and thought. The petals are unfolding so fast in your 
character. I want to watch each one, and you know this, 
dear. There is always a curious bond between a firstborn 
and a mother, to the mother specially, for you taught me 
motherhood, all the dear, first motherlore, my Jean. Some 
day you will understand what I mean, when you look down 
into the face of your own. I must stop, for I am getting 
altogether homesick for you. 

Tenderly, 

Mother. 

Jean sat for a few minutes after reading this, 
without unfolding the girls’ letters. Mothers 
were wonderful persons, she thought. Their 
brooding wings stretched so far over one, and 
gave forth a love and protectiveness such as 
nothing else in the world could do. 

The next was from Helen, quite like her too. 


276 JEAN OF GREENACRES 


Brief and beautifully penned on her very own 
violet tinted note paper. 

DEAR JEANIE: 

I do hope you have met the wonderful Contessa. I 
can picture her in my mind. You know Father’s picture 
of Marie Stuart with the pearl cap? Well, I’ve been won- 
dering if she looked like that. I know they wore pearl 
caps in Italy because Juliet wore one. I’d love a pearl 
cap. Tell me what Carlota talks about, and what color 
are her eyes! 

School is very uninteresting just now, and it is cold 
driving over to the car. But I have one teacher I love. 
Miss Simmons. Jean, she has the face of Priscilla exactly, 
and she is descended from Miles Standish, really and truly. 
She told me so, and Kit said if all of his descendants could 
be bunched together, they would fill a state. You know 
Kit. Miss Simmons wears a low lace collar with a small 
cameo pin, and her voice is beautiful. I can’t bear people 
with loud voices. When I see her in the morning, it just 
wipes out all the cold drive and everything that’s gone 
wrong. Well, Kit says it’s time to go to bed. I forgot 
to tell you, unless Mother has already in her letter, that 
Mr. McRae is coming from Saskatoon with Honey, and he 
will stay here. Doris hopes he will bring her a tame 
bear cub. 

Your loving sister, 

Helen Beatrice Robbins. 


“Oh, Helenita, you little goose,” Jean 
laughed, shaking her head. The letter was so 


GREENACRE LETTERS 277 


entirely typical of Helen and her vagaries. A 
mental flash of the dear old Contessa in a pearl 
cap came to her. She must remember to tell 
Cousin Beth about that tomorrow. 

Doris’s letter was hurried and full of maternal 
cares. 

DEAR SISTER! 

We miss you awfully. Shad got hurt yesterday. His 
foot was jammed when a tree fell on it, but Joe is helping 
him, and I think they like each other better. 

We are setting all the hens that want to set. The min- 
ute I notice one clucking I tell Mother, and we fix a nest 
for her. Father has the incubator going, but it may go 
out if we forget to put in oil. Shad says, and the hens don't 
forget to keep on the nests. Bless Mother Nature, Mrs. 
Gorham says. She made caramel filling today the way 
you do, and it all ran out in the oven, and she said the 
funniest thing. “Thunder and lightning." Just like that. 
And when I laughed, she told me not to because she ought 
not to say such things, but when cooking things went con- 
trariwise, she just lost her head entirely. Isn’t that fun? 
Send me a pressed pink rose. I’d love it. 

Lovingly yours, 

Dorrie. 

Last of all was Kit’s, six sheets of pencilled 
scribbling, crowded together on both sides. 

I’m writing this the last thing at night, dear sister mine, 
when my brain is getting calm. Any old time the poet 


278 JEAN OF GREENACRES 


starts singing blithesomely of ye joys of springtide I hope 
he lands on this waste spot the first weeks in March. 
Jean, the frost is thawing in the roads, and that means the 
roads are simply falling in. You drive over one in the 
morning, and at night it isn’t there at all. There’s just a 
slump, understand. I’m so afraid that Princess will break 
her legs falling into a Gilead quagmire, I hardly dare 
drive her. 

I suppose Mother has written that we have a guest com- 
ing from Saskatoon. I feel very philosophical about it. 
It will do Dad good, and I’ll be glad to see Honey again. 
Billie’s coming home for Easter, thank goodness. He’s 
human. Do you suppose you will be here then? What do 
you do all day? Gallivant lightsoitiely around the adja- 
cent landscape with Cousin Beth, or languish with the 
Contessa and Carlota in some luxurious spot, making be- 
lieve you’re nobility too. Remember, Jean Robbins, the 
rank is but the guinea’s stamp, “a man’s a man for a’ that.” 
Whatever would you do without your next sister to keep 
you balanced along strict republican lines? Don’t mind 
me. We’ve been studying comparisons between forms of 
government at school, and I’m completely jumbled on it 
all. I can’t make up my mind what sort of a government 
I want to rule over. This kingship business seems to be 
so uncertain. Poor old King Charles and Louis, and the 
rest. I’m to be Charlotte Corday at the prison window in 
one of our monthly tableaux. Like the picture? 

If you do see any of the spring styles, don’t be afraid 
to send them home. Even while we cannot indulge, it’s 
something to look at them. I don’t want any more mid- 
dies. They are just a subterfuge. I want robes and gar- 


GREENACRE LETTERS 279 


ments. And how are the girls wearing their hair in quaint 
old Boston town? Mine’s getting too long to do anything 
with, and I feel Quakerish with it. It’s an awful nuisance 
trying to look like everybody else. I’ll be glad when I 
can live under a greenwood tree some place, with a stun- 
ning cutty sark on of dull green doeskin. Do you know 
what a cutty sark is? Read Bobby Burns, my child. I 
opine it’s a cross between a squaw’s afternoon frock and a 
witch’s kirtle. But it is graceful and comfortable, and I 
shall always wear one when I take to the forest to stay. 

I have a new chum, a dog. Shad says he’s just as 
much of a stray as Joe was, but he isn’t. He’s a shep- 
herd dog, and very intelligent. I’ve called him Mac. He 
fights like sixty with Shad, but you just ought to see him 
father that puppy of Doris’s you brought up from New 
York. He trots him off to the woods with him, and 
teaches him all sorts of dog tricks. Doris had him cud- 
dled and muffled up until he was a perfect little molly- 
coddle. I do think she would take the natural independ- 
ence out of a kangaroo just by petting it. 

I miss you in the evenings a whole lot. Helen goes 
around in a sort of moon ring of romance nowadays, so 
it’s no fun talking to her, and Dorrie is all fussed up over 
her setting hens and the incubator natural born orphans, 
so I am left to my own devices. Did you ever wish we 
had some boys in the family? I do now and then. I’d 
like one about sixteen, just between us two, that I could 
chum with. Billie comes the nearest to being a kid brother 
that I’ve ever had. That boy really had a dandy sense of 
fairness, Jean, do you know it? I hope being away at 
school hasn’t spoilt him. And that makes me think. The 


280 JEAN OF GREENACRES 


Judge and Cousin Roxy were down to dinner Sunday, and 
the flower of romance still blooms for them. It’s just 
splendid to see the way he eyes her, not adoringly, but 
with so much appreciation, Jean, and he chuckles every 
time she springs one of her delicious sayings. I don’t 
see how he ever let her travel her own path so many 
years. 

Well, my dear, artistic close relative and beloved sister, 
it is almost ten p. m., and Shad has wound the clock, and 
locked the doors, and put wood on the fire, so it’s time for 
Kathleen to turn into her lonely cot. Give my love to 
Cousin Beth, and write to me personally. We can’t bear 
your inclusive family letters. 

Fare ye well, great heart. We’re taking up Hamlet 
too, in English. Wasn’t Ophelia a quitter? 

Yours, 

Kit. 

If it had not been too late, Jean felt she could 
have sat down then and there, and answered 
every one of them. They took her straight back 
to Greenacres and all the daily round of fun 
there. In the morning she read them all to 
Carlota, sitting on their favorite old Roman seat 
out in the big central greenhouse. Here were 
only ferns and plants like orchids, begonias, and 
delicate cyclamen. There was a little fountain 
in the center, and several frogs and gold fish 
down among the lily pads. 

“Ah, but you are lucky,” Carlota cried in her 


GREENACRE LETTERS 281 


quick way. “I am just myself, and it’s so 
monotonous. I wish I could go back with you, 
even for just a few days, and know them all. 
Kit must be so funny and clever.” 

“Why couldn’t you? Mother’d love to have 
you, and the girls are longing to know what you 
look like. I’d love to capture you and carry you 
into our old hills. Perhaps by Easter you could 
go. Would the Contessa let you, do you think?” 

Carlota laughed merrily, and laid her arm 
around Jean’s shoulder. 

“I think she would let me do anything you 
wished. Let us go now and ask her.” 

The Contessa had not joined them at break- 
fast. She preferred her tray in Continental 
fashion, brought up by Minory, and they found 
her lying in the flood of sunshine from the south 
window, on the big comfy chintz covered couch 
drawn up before the open fireplace. Over a 
faded old rose silk dressing gown she wore a 
little filmy lace shawl the tint of old ivory that 
matched her skin exactly. Jean never saw her 
then or in after years without marvelling at the 
perpetual youth of her eyes and smile. She 
held out both hands to her with an exclamation 
of pleasure, and kissed her on her cheeks. 

“Ah, Giovanna mia,” she cried. “Good 


282 JEAN OF GREENACRES 


morning. Carlota has already visited me, and 
see, the flowers, so beautiful and dear, which 
your cousin sent up — roses and roses. They are 
my favorites. Other flowers we hold sentiment 
for, not for their own sakes, but because there 
are associations or memories connected with 
them, but roses bring forth homage. At my 
little villa in Tuscany which you must see some 
time, it is very old, very poor in many ways, but 
we have roses everywhere. Now, tell me, what 
is it you two have thought up. I see it in your 
eyes.” 

“Could I take Carlota home with me for a 
little visit when I go?” asked Jean. “It isn’t so 
very far from here, just over in the corner of 
Connecticut where Rhode Island and Massachu- 
setts meet, and by Easter it will be beautiful in 
the hills. And it’s perfectly safe for her up 
there. Nothing ever happens.” 

The Contessa laughed at her earnestness. 

“We must consult with your cousin first,” she 
said. “If we can have you with us in Italy then 
we must let Carlota go with you surely. We 
sail in June. I have word from my sister. 
Would you like to go, child?” 

J ean sat down on the chair by the bedside and 
clasped her hands. 


GREENACRE LETTERS 283 


“Oh, it just couldn’t happen,” she said in 
almost a hushed tone. “I’m sure it couldn’t, 
Contessa. Perhaps in another year. Cousin 
Beth said she might be going over, and then I 
could be with her. But not yet.” 

The Contessa lifted her eyebrows and smiled 
whimsically. 

“But what if there is a conspiracy of happi- 
ness afoot? Then you have nothing to say, and 
I have talked with your cousin, and she has 
written to another cousin, Roxy, I think she calls 
her. Ah, you have such wonderful women 
cousins, Giovanna, they are all fairy godmothers 
I think.” 

Jean liked to be called Giovanna. It gave 
her a curious feeling of belonging to that life 
Carlota told her of, in the terra cotta colored 
villa among the old terraces and rose gardens 
overlooking the sea. She remembered some of 
Browning’s short poems that she had always 
liked, the little fragment beginning, 

“Your ghost should walk, you lover of trees. 

In a wind swept gap of the Pyrenees.” 

“If you keep on day dreaming over pos- 
sibilities, Jean Robbins,” she told herself in her 
mirror, “you’ll be quite as bad as Helen. L You 


284 JEAN OF GREENACRES 


keep your two feet on the ground, and stop flut- 
tering wings.’’ 

Whereupon for the remainder of the stay at 
Cousin Beth’s, she bent to study with a will, until 
Easter week loomed near, and it was time to 
think of starting for the hills once more. Car- 
lota was going with her, and so excited and ex- 
pectant over the trip that the Contessa declared 
she almost felt like accompanying them, just to 
discover this marvelous charm that seemed to 
enfold Greenacres and its girls. 


BILLIE’S FIGHTING CHANCE 



CHAPTER XVII 
billie’s fighting chance 

It was the Friday before Easter when they 
arrived. Jean looked around eagerly as she 
jumped to the platform, wondering which of the 
family would drive down to meet them, but in- 
stead of Kit or Shad, Ralph McRae stepped up 
to her with outstretched hand. All the way 
from Saskatoon, she thought, and just the same 
as he was a year before. As Kit had said then, 
in describing him: 

“He doesn’t look as if he could be the hero, 
but he’d always be the hero’s best friend, like 
Mercutio was to Romeo, or Gratiano to Ben- 
volio. If he couldn’t be Robin Hood, he’d be 
Will Scarlet, not Alan a Dale. I couldn’t im- 
agine him ever singing serenades.” 

Jean introduced him to Carlota, who greeted 
him in her pretty, half foreign way, and Mr. 
Briggs waved a welcome as he trundled the ex- 
press truck past them down the platform. 

“Looks a bit like rain. Good for the 
planters,” he called. 


288 JEAN OF GREENACRES 


Princess took the long curved hill from the 
station splendidly, and Jean lifted her head 
to it all, the long overlapping hill range that 
unfolded as they came to the first stretch 
of level road, the rich green of the pines 
gracing their slopes, and most of all the 
beautiful haze of young green that lay like a 
veil over the land from the first bursting leaf 
buds. 

“Oh, it’s good to be home,” she exclaimed. 
“Over at Cousin Beth’s the land seems so level, 
and I like hills.” 

“They were having some sort of Easter exer- 
cises at school, and the girls could not drive 
down,” Ralph said. “Honey and I arrived two 
days ago, and I asked for the privilege of com- 
ing down. Shad’s busy planting out his first 
lettuce and radishes in the hotbeds, and Mrs. 
Robbins is up at the Judge’s today. Billie’s 
pretty sick, I believe.” 

“Billie?” cried Jean. “Not Billie?” 

Even to think of Billie’s being ill was absurd. 
It was like saying a raindrop had the measles, 
or the wind seemed to have an attack of whoop- 
ing cough. He had never been sick all the years 
he had lived up there, bare headed winter and 
summer, free as the birds and animals he loved. 


BILLIE’S FIGHTING CHANCE 289 


All the long drive home she felt subdued in a 
way. 

“He came back from school Monday and they 
are afraid of typhoid. I believe conditions at 
the school were not very good this spring, and 
several of the boys came down with it. But I’m 
sure if anybody could pulhhim through it would 
be Mrs. Ellis,” said Ralph. 

But even with the best nursing and care, 
things looked bad for Billie. It was supper time 
before Mrs. Robbins returned. Carlota had 
formed an immediate friendship with Mr. Rob- 
bins, and they talked of her father, whom he 
had known before his departure for Italy. For 
anyone to have known and appreciated her 
father, was a sure passport to Carlota’s favor. 
It raised them immensely in her estimation, and 
she was delighted to find, as she said, “somebody 
whose eyes have really looked at him.” 

Kit was indignant and stunned at the blow 
that had fallen on her chum, Billie. She never 
could take the slings and arrows of outrageous 
fortune in the proper humble spirit anyway. 

“The idea that Billie should have to be sick,” 
she cried. “How long will he be in bed, 
Mother?” 

“I don’t know, dear,” Mrs. Robbins said. 


290 JEAN OF GREENACRES 


“He’s sturdy and strong, but the fever usually 
has to run its course. Dr. Gallup came right 
over.” 

“Bless him,” Kit put in fervently. “He’ll 
get him well in no time. I don’t think there 
ever was a doctor so set on making people well. 
I’d rather see him come in the door, no matter 
what ailed me, sit down and tell me I had just 
a little distemper, open his cute little black case, 
and mix me up that everlasting mess that tastes 
like cinnamon and sugar, than have a whole line 
up of city specialists tapping me.” 

Helen and Doris clung closely to Jean, taking 
her and Carlota around the place to show her all 
the new chicks, orphans and otherwise. Green- 
acres really was showing signs of full return this 
year for the care and love spent on its rehabilita- 
tion. The fruit trees, after Shad’s pruning and 
fertilizing, and general treatment that made 
them look like swaddled babies, were blossoming 
profusely, and on the south slope of the field 
along the river, rows and rows of young peach 
trees had been set out. The garden too, had 
come in for its share of attention. Helen loved 
flowers, and had worked there more diligently 
than she usually could be coaxed to on any sort 
of real labor. Shad had cleared away the old 


BILLIE’S FIGHTING CHANCE 291 


dead canes first, and had plowed up the central 
plot, taking care to save all the perennials. 

“You know what I wish, Mother dear,” said 
Helen, standing with earth stained fingers in the 
midst of the tangle of old vines and bushes. “I 
wish we could lay out paths and put stones down 
on them, flat stones, I mean, like flags. And 
have flower beds with borders. Could we, do 
you think? And maybe a sun dial. I’d love to 
have a sun dial in our family.” 

Her earnestness made Mrs. Robbins smile, but 
she agreed to the plan, and Cousin Roxy helped 
out with slips from her flower store, so that the 
prospect for a garden was very good. And 
later Honey Hancock came up with Piney to 
advise and help too. The year out west had 
turned the bashful country boy into a stalwart, 
independent individual whom even Piney re- 
garded with some respect. He was taller than 
her now, broad shouldered, and sure of him- 
self. 

“I think Ralph has done wonders with him,” 
Piney said. “Mother thinks so too. He can 
pick her right up in his arms now, and walk 
around with her. She doesn’t seem to mind 
going west any more, after seeing what it’s made 
of Honey, and hearing him tell of it. And 


292 JEAN OF GREENACRES 


Ralph says we’ll always keep the home here so 
that when we want to come back, we can. I 
think he likes Gilead someway. He says it 
never seems just like home way out west. You 
need to walk on the earth where your fathers and 
grandfathers have trod, and even to breathe the 
same air. Mother says the only place she hates 
to leave behind is our little family burial plot 
over in the woods.” 

In the days following Easter, while Mrs. 
Robbins was over at the Ellis place helping 
care for Billie, Helen, Piney and Carlota formed 
a fast friendship, much to Jean and Kit’s 
wonderment. It was natural for Helen and 
Carlota to be chums, but Carlota was enthu- 
siastic over Piney, her girl of the hills, as she 
called her. 

“Oh, but she is glorious,” she cried, the first 
day, as she stood at the gate posts watching 
Piney dash down the hill road on Mollie. “My 
father would love to model her head. She is so 
fearless. And I am afraid of lots and lots of 
things. She is like the mountain girls at home. 
And her real name — Proserpine. It is so good 
to have a name that is altogether different. My 
closest girl friend at the convent was Signa 
Palmieri and she has a little sister named As- 


BILLIE’S FIGHTING CHANCE 293 


sunta. I like them both, and I like yours, Jean. 
What does it mean?” 

“I don’t know,” Jean answered, musingly, as 
she bent to lift up a convolvulus vine that was 
trying to lay its tendrils on the old stone wall. 
“It is the feminine of John, isn’t it?” 

“Then it means beloved. That suits you.” 
Carlota regarded her seriously. “My aunt says 
you have the gift of charm and sympathy.” 

J ean colored a little. She was not quite used 
to the utter frankness of Carlota’s Italian nature. 
While she and the other girls never hesitated to 
tell just what they thought of each other, cer- 
tainly, as Kit would have said, nobody tossed 
over these little bouquets of compliment. It was 
entirely against the New England temperament. 

Just as Carlota started to say more there came 
a long hail from the hill, and coming down they 
saw Kit and Sally Peckham, with long wooden 
staffs. Sally dawned on Carlota with quite as 
much force as Piney had. Her heavy red gold 
hair hung today in two long plaits down her 
back. She wore a home-made blue cloth skirt 
and a loose blouse of dark red, with the neck 
turned in, and one of her brothers’ hats, a grey 
felt affair that she had stuck a quail’s wing in. 

“Hello,” called Kit, “we’ve been for a hike, 


294 JEAN OF GREENACRES 


clear over to the village. Mother ’phoned she 
needed some things from the drug store, so we 
thought we’d walk over and get them. Billie’s 
just the same. He don’t know a soul, and all 
he talks about is making his math, exams. I 
think it’s perfectly shameful to take a boy like 
that who loves reading and nature and natural 
things, and grind him down to regular stuff.” 

She reached the stone gateway, and sat down 
on a rock to rest, while Jean introduced Sally, 
who bowed shyly to the slim strange girl in 
black. 

“I didn’t know you had company, excepting 
Mr. McRae,” she said. “Kit wanted me to walk 
over with her.” 

“I love a good long hike,” interrupted Kit. 
“Specially when I feel bothered or indignant. 
We’ve kept up the hike club ever since the roads 
opened up, Jean. It’s more fun than anything 
out here. I never realized there was so much to 
know about just woods and fields until Sally 
taught me where to hunt for things. Do you 
like to hike, Car lota?” 

“Hike?” repeated Carlota, puzzled. “What 
is it?” 

“A hike is a long walk.” 

Carlota laughed in her easy-going way. 


BILLIE S FIGHTING CHANCE 295 


“I don’t know. Not too long. I think I’d 
rather ride.” 

“I also,” Helen said flatly. “I don’t see a bit 
of fun dragging around like Kit does, through 
the woods and over swamps, climbing hills, and 
always wanting to get to the top of the next 
one.” 

“Oh, but I love to,” Kit chanted. “Maybe 
I’ll be a mountain climber yet. Children, you 
don’t grasp that it is something strange and in- 
teresting in my own special temperament. The 
longing to attain, the — the insatiable desire to 
seize adventure and follow her fleeing footsteps, 
the longing to tap the stars on their foreheads 
and let them know I’m here.” 

“Kit’s often like this,” said Helen, confi- 
dentially to Carlota. “You mustn’t mind her 
a bit. You see, she believes she is the genius of 
the family, and sometimes, I do too, almost.” 

“There may be a spark in each of us,” Kit said 
generously. “I’ll not claim it all. Let’s get 
back to the house. I’m famished, and I’ve 
coaxed Sally to stay and lunch with us.” 

“What good times many can have,” Carlota 
slipped her arm in Jean’s on the walk back 
through the garden. “Sometimes I wish I had 
been many too, I mean with brothers and sisters. 


296 JEAN OF GREENACRES 


You feel so oddly when you are all the family in 
yourself.” 

“Well,” laughed Jean, “it surely has some dis- 
advantages, for every single one wants some- 
thing different at the same identical moment, 
and that is comical now and then, but we like 
being a tribe ourselves. I think the more one 
has to divide their interests and sympathies, the 
more it comes back to them in strength. Cousin 
Roxy said that to me once, and I liked it. She 
said no human beings should have all their eggs 
in one nest, but make a beautiful omelet of them 
for the feeding of the multitude. Isn’t that 
good?” 

Carlota had not seen Cousin Roxy yet. With 
Billie dowm seriously ill, the Judge’s wife had 
shut out the world at large, and instituted herself 
his nurse in her own sense of the word, which 
meant not only caring for him, but enfolding 
him in such a mantle of love and inward power 
of courage that it would have taken a cordon of 
angels to get him away from her. 

Still, those were long anxious days through 
the remainder of April. Mrs. Gorham and 
Jean managed the other house, while Mrs. Rob- 
bins helped out at the sick room. There was a 
trained nurse on hand too, but her duties were 


BILLIE’S FIGHTING CHANCE 297 


largely to wait on Cousin Roxy, and as Mrs. 
Robbins said laughingly, it was the only time in 
her life when she had seen a trained nurse brow- 
beaten. 

Kit was restless and uneasy over her chum’s 
plight. She would saddle Princess and ride 
over on her twice a day to see what the bulletins 
were, and sometimes sit out in the old fashioned 
garden watching the windows of the room where 
Cousin Roxy kept vigil. She almost resented 
the joyous activity of the bees and birds in their 
spring delirium when she thought of their com- 
rade Billie, lying there fighting the fever. 

And oddly enough, the old Judge would join 
her, he who had lived so many years ignoring 
Billie’s existence, sit and hold her hand in his, 
gazing out at the sunlight and the growing 
things of the old garden, and now and then 
giving vent to a heavy sigh. He, too, missed 
his boy, and realized what it might mean if the 
birds and bees and ants and all the rest of Billie’s 
small brotherhood, were to lose their friend. 

Jean never forget the final night. She had a 
call over the telephone from her mother about 
nine, to leave Mrs. Gorham in charge, and come 
to her. 

“Dear, I want you here. It’s the crisis, and 


298 JEAN OF GREENACRES 


we can’t be sure what may happen. Billie’s in 
a heavy sleep now, and the old Doctor says we 
can just wait. Cousin Roxy is with him.” 

Jean laid off her outer cloak and hat, and 
went in where old Dr. Gallup sat. It always 
seemed foolish to call him old although his years 
bordered on three score. His hair was gray and 
straggled boyishly as some football hero’s, his 
eyes were brown and bright, and his smile some- 
thing so much better than medicine that one just 
naturally revived at the sight of him, Cousin 
Roxy used to say. He sat by the table, looking 
out the window, one hand tapping the edge, the 
other deep in his pocket. One could not have 
said whether he was taking counsel of Mother 
Nature, brooding out there in the shadowy 
spring night, or lifting up his heart to a higher 
throne. 

“Hello, Jeanie, child,” he said, cheerily. 
“Going to keep me company, aren’t you? Did 
you come up alone?” 

“Shad drove me over. Doctor, Billie is all 
right, isn’t he?” 

“We hope so,” answered the old doctor. 
“But what is it to be all right? If the little lad’s 
race is run, it has been a good one, Jeanie, and 
he goes out fearlessly, and if not, then he is all 


BILLIE’S FIGHTING CHANCE 299 


right too, and we hope to hold him with us. But 
when this time comes and it’s the last sleep before 
dawn, there’s nothing to do but watch and wait.” 

“But do you think — ” 

Jean hesitated. She could not help feeling 
he must know what the hope was. 

“He’s got a fine fighting chance,” said the 
doctor. “Now, I’m going in with Mrs. Ellis, 
and you comfort the Judge and brace him up. 
He’s in the study there.” 

It was dark in the study. Jean opened the 
door gently, and looked in. The old Judge sat 
in his deep, old arm chair by the desk, and his 
head was bent forward. She did not say a word, 
but tiptoed over, and knelt beside him, her cheek 
against his sleeve. And the Judge laid his arm 
around her shoulders in silence, patting her 
absent-mindedly. So they sat until out of the 
windows the garden took on a lighter aspect, 
and there came the faint twittering of birds 
wakening in their nests. 

Jean, watching the beautiful miracle of the 
dawn, marvelled. The dew lent a silvery radi- 
ance to every blade of grass, every leaf and 
twig. There was an unearthly, mystic beauty 
to the whole landscape and the garden. She 
thought of a verse the girls had found once, when 


300 JEAN OF GREENACRES 


they had traced Piney’s name in poesy for Kit’s 
benefit, one from “The Garden of Proserpine.” 
Something about the pale green garden, and 
these lines, 

“From too much love of living, 

From joy and care set free.” 

And just then the old doctor put his head in 
the door and sang out cheerily, 

“It’s all right. Billie’s awake.” 


THE PATH OF THE FIRE 










* 



CHAPTER XVIII 


THE PATH OF THE FIEE 

Carlota’s stay was lengthened from one week 
to three at Jean’s personal solicitation. The 
Contessa wrote that so long as the beloved child 
was enjoying herself and benefiting in health 
among “the hills of rest,” she would not dream 
of taking her back to the city, while spring trod 
lightly through the valleys. 

“Isn’t she poetical, though?” Kit said, thought- 
fully, as she knelt to make some soft meal for a 
new batch of Doris’s chicks. Carlota had read 
the letter aloud to the family at the breakfast 
table, and they could hear her now playing the 
piano and singing with Jean and Helen, 
“Pippa’s” song: 

‘‘The year’s at the spring. 

And day’s at the morn.” 

“No wonder Carlota is posted on all the 
romance and poetry of the old world. All 
Helen has done since she came is moon around 


304 JEAN OF GREENACRES 


and imagine herself Rosamunda in her garden. 
It makes me tired with all the spring work hang- 
ing over to be done. How many broods does 
this make, Dorrie?” 

“Eight,” said Dorrie, “and more coming. 
Shad said he understood we were going to sell 
off all the incubated ones at ten cents apiece, 
and keep the real brooders for the family.” 

“Oh, dear!” Kit leaned back against the side 
of the barn, and looked lazily off at the widening 
valley vista before her. “I am so afraid that 
Dad will get too much interested in chicken 
raising and crops and soils and things, so that 
we’ll stay on here forever. Somehow I didn’t 
mind it half as much all through the winter time, 
but now that spring is here, it is just simply 
awful to have to pitch in and work from the 
rising of the sun even unto its going down. I 
want to be a ‘lily of the field.’ ” 

Overhead the great fleecy, white clouds sailed 
up from the south in a squadron of splendor. A 
new family of bluebirds lately hatched was call- 
ing hungrily from a nest in the old cherry tree 
nearby, and being scolded lustily by a catbird 
for lack of patience. There was a delicate haze 
lingering still over the woods and distant fields. 
The new foliage was out, but hardly enough to 


THE PATH OF THE FIRE 305 


make any difference in the landscape’s coloring. 
After two weeks of almost daily showers there 
had come a spell of close warm weather that 
dried up the fields and woods, and left them as 
Cousin Roxy said “dry as tinder and twice as 
dangerous.” 

“How’s Billie?” asked Doris, suddenly. “I’ll 
be awfully glad when he’s out again.” 

“They’ve got him on the veranda bundled up 
like a mummy. He’s so topply that you can 
push him over with one finger tip and Cousin 
Roxy treats him as if she had him wadded up 
in pink cotton. I think if they just stopped 
treating him like a half-sick person, and just let 
him do as he pleased he’d get well twice as fast.” 

Doris had been gazing up at the sky dreamily. 
All at once she said, 

“What a funny cloud that is over there, Kit.” 

It hung over a big patch of woods towards the 
village, a low motionless, pearl colored cloud, 
very peculiar looking, and very suspicious, and 
the odd part about it was that it seemed balanced 
on a base of cloud, like a huge mushroom or a 
waterspout in shape. 

“What on earth is that?” exclaimed Kit, 
springing to her feet. “That’s never a cloud, 
and it is right over the old Ames place. Do 


306 JEAN OF GREENACRES 


you suppose they’re out burning brush with the 
woods so dry?” 

“There’s nobody home today. Don’t you 
know it’s Saturday, and Astrid said they were 
all going to the auction at Woodchuck hill.” 

Kit did not wait to hear any more. She sped 
to the house like a young deer and, with eyes 
quite as startled, she burst into the kitchen and 
called up the back stairs. 

“Mother, do you see that smoke over the 
Ames’s woods?” 

“Smoke,” echoed Mrs. Robbins’ voice. 
“Why, no, dear, I haven’t noticed any. Wait 
a minute, and I’ll see.” 

Rut Kit was by nature a joyous alarmist. 
She loved a new thrill, and in the daily monotony 
that smothered one in Gilead anything that 
promised an adventure came as a heaven sent 
relief. She flew up the stairs, stopping to call 
in at Helen’s door, and send a hail over the front 
banister to Jean and Carlota. Her father and 
mother were standing at the open window when 
she entered their room, and Mr. Robbins had 
his field glasses. 

“It is a fire, isn’t it, Dad?” Kit asked, eagerly, 
and even as she spoke there came the long, shrill 
blast of alarm on the Peckham mill whistle. 


THE PATH OF THE FIRE 307 


There was no fire department of any kind for 
fourteen miles around. Nothing seemed to 
unite the little outlying communities of the hill 
country so much as the fire peril, but on this 
Saturday it happened that nearly all the avail- 
able men had leisurely jaunted over to the 
Woodchuck Hill auction. This was one of the 
characteristics of Gilead, shunting its daily tasks 
when any diversion offered. 

“Oh, listen,” exclaimed Helen, who had hur- 
ried in also. “There’s the alarm bell ringing up 
at the church too. It must be a big one.” 

Even as she spoke the telephone bell rang 
downstairs, while Shad called from the front 
garden : 

“Fearful big fire just broke out between here 
and Ames’s. I’m going over with the mill boys 
to help fight it.” 

“Can I go too, Shad?” cried Joe eagerly. “I 
won’t be in the way, honest, I won’t.” 

“Go ’long, you stay here, an’ if you see that 
wing of smoke spreadin’ over this way, you 
hitch up, quick as you can, an’ drive the folks 
out of its reach.” Shad started off up the road 
with a shovel over one shoulder and a heavy mop 
over the other. Jean was at the telephone. It 
was Judge Ellis calling. 


308 JEAN OF GREENACRES 


“He’s worried over Cousin Roxy, Mother,” 
Jean called up the stairs. “Cynthy wanted her 
to come over to her place today to get some 
carpet rags, and Cousin Roxy drove over there 
about an hour ago. He says her place lies right 
in the path of the fire. Mrs. Gorham has gone 
away for the day to the auction with Ben, and 
the Judge will have to stay with Billie. He’s 
terribly anxious.” 

“Oh, Dad,” exclaimed Kit, “couldn’t I please, 
please, go over and stay with Billie, and let the 
Judge come up to the fire, if he wants to. I’m 
sure he’s just dying to. Not but what I’m sure 
Cousin Roxy can take care of herself. May I? 
Oh, you dear. Tell him I’m coming, Jean.” 

“Yes, you’re going,” said Helen, aggrievedly, 
“and you’ll ride Princess over there, and how on 
earth are the rest of us going to be rescued if the 
fire comes this way.” 

“My dear child, and beloved sister, if you see 
yon flames sweeping down upon you, get hence 
to Little River, and stand in it mid-stream. I’m 
sure there isn’t one particle of danger. Just 
think of Astrid and Ingeborg coming back from 
the auction, and maybe finding their house just 
a pile of ashes.” 

Carlota stood apart from the rest, her dark 


THE PATH OF THE FIRE 309 


eyes wide with surprise and apprehension. A 
forest fire to her meant a great devastating, 
irresistible force which swept over miles of acre- 
age. Her father had told her, back in the old 
villa, of camping days in the Adirondacks, when 
he had been caught in the danger zone, and had 
fought fires side by side with the government 
rangers. She did not realize that down here in 
the little Quinnibaug Hills, a wood fire in the 
spring of the year was looked upon as a natural 
visitation, rather calculated to provide amuse- 
ment and occupation to the boys and men, as 
well as twenty cents an hour to each and every 
one who fought it. 

Jean had left the telephone and was putting 
on her coat and hat. 

“Mother,” she asked, “do you mind if Car- 
lota and I just walk up the wood road a little 
way? We won’t go near the fighting line where 
the men are at all, and I’d love to see it. Be- 
sides I thought perhaps we might work our 
way around through that big back wood lot to 
Cynthy’s place and see if Cousin Roxy is there. 
Then, we could drive back with them.” 

“Oh, can’t I go too?” asked Doris, eagerly. 
“I won’t be one bit in the way. Please say yes, 
Mother, please?” 


310 JEAN OF GREENACRES 


“I can’t, dear,” Mrs. Robbins patted her 
youngest, hurriedly. “Why, yes, Jean, I think 
it’s safe for you to both go. Don’t you, Jerry?” 

Mr. Robbins smiled at Jean’s flushed, excited 
face. It was so seldom the eldest robin lost her 
presence of mind, and really became excited. 

“I don’t think it will hurt them a bit,” he said. 
“Dorrie and Helen had better stay here though. 
They will probably be starting back fires, and 
you two girls will have all you can do, to take 
to your own heels, without looking out for the 
younger ones.” 

With a couple of golf capes thrown over their 
shoulders, the two girls started up the hill road 
for about three quarters of a mile. The church 
bell over at the Plains kept ringing steadily. 
At the top of the hill they came to the old wood 
road that formed a short cut over to the old 
Ames place. Here where the trees met over- 
head in an arcade the road was heavy with black 
mud, and they had to keep to the side up near 
the old rock walls. As they advanced farther 
there came a sound of driving wheels, and all at 
once Hedda’s mother appeared in her rickety 
wagon. She sat far forward on the seat, a 
man’s old felt hat jammed down over her heavy, 
flaxen hair, and an old overcoat with the collar 


THE PATH OF THE FIRE 311 


upturned, thrown about her. Leaning forward 
with eager eyes, the reins slack on the horse’s 
back, giving him full leeway, she seemed to be 
thoroughly enthusiastic over this new excite- 
ment in Gilead. 

“Looks like it’s going to be some fire, girls. 
I’m givin’ the alarm along the road. Giddap !” 
She slapped the old horse madly with the reins, 
and shook back the wind blown wisps of hair 
from her face like a Valkyrie' scenting battle. 

“Did you see?” asked Car lota, wonderingly. 
“She wore men’s boots too.” 

“Yes, and she runs a ninety acre farm with the 
help of Hedda, thirteen years old, and two hired 
men. She gets right out into the fields with 
them and manages everything herself. I think 
she’s wonderful. They are Icelanders.” 

Another team coming the opposite way held 
Mr. Rudemeir and his son August. An array 
of mops, axes, and shovels hung out over the 
back seat. Mr. Rudemeir was smoking his clay 
pipe, placidly, and merely waved one hand at the 
girls in salutation, but August called, 

“It has broken out on the other side of the 
road, farther down.” 

“Is it going towards the old Allan place?” 
asked Jean, anxiously. “Mrs. Ellis is down 


312 JEAN OF GREENACRES 


there with Cynthy, and the Judge telephoned 
over he’s anxious about them. That’s where we 
are going.” 

“Better keep out,” called back old Rudemeir 
over his shoulder. “Like enough she’ll drive 
right across the river, if she sees the fire cornin’. 
Can’t git through this way nohow.” 

The rickety old farm wagon disappeared 
ahead of them up the road. Jean hesitated, 
anxiously. The smoke was thickening in the 
air, but they penetrated farther into the woods. 
Up on the hill to one side, she saw the Ames 
place, half obscured already by the blue haze. 
It lay directly in the path of the fire, unless the 
wind happened to change, and if it should change 
it would surely catch Carlota and herself if they 
fried to reach Cynthy’s house down near the 
river bank. Still she felt that she must take the 
chance. There was an old wood road used by the 
lumber men, and she knew every step of the way. 

“Come on,” she said to Carlota. “I’m sure 
we can make it.” 

They turned now from the main road into an 
old overgrown byway. Along its sides rambled 
ground pine, and wintergreen grew thickly in 
the shade of the old oaks. Jean took the lead, 
hurrying on ahead, and calling to Carlota that 


THE PATH OF THE FIRE 313 


it was just a little way, and they were absolutely 
safe. When they came out on the river road, 
the little mouse colored house was in sight, and 
sure enough, Ella Lou stood by the hitching 
post. 

Jean never stopped to rap at the door. It 
stood wide open, and the girls went through the 
entry into the kitchen. It was empty. 

“Cousin Roxy,” called Jean, loudly. “Cousin 
Roxy, are you here?” 

From somewhere upstairs there came an an- 
swering hail. 

“Pity’s sakes, child!” exclaimed Cousin Roxy, 
appearing at the top of the stairs with her arms 
full of carpet rags. “What are you doing 
down here? Cynthy and I are just sorting out 
some things she wanted to take over to my 
place.” 

“Haven’t you seen the smoke? All the woods 
are on fire up around the Ames place. The 
Judge was worried, and telephoned for us to 
warn you.” 

“Land!” laughed Mrs. Ellis. “Won’t he 
ever learn that I’m big enough and old enough 
to take care of myself. I never saw a Gilead 
wood fire yet that put me in any danger.” 

She stepped out of the doorway, pushed her 


314 JEAN OF GREENACRES 


spectacles up on her forehead and sniffed the 
air. 

“ ’Tis kind of smoky, ain’t it,” she said. 
“And the wind’s beginning to shift.” She 
looked up over the rise of the hill in front of the 
house. Above it poured great belching masses 
of lurid smoke. Even as she looked the huge 
wing-like mass veered and swayed in the sky 
like some vast shapes of genii. Jean caught 
her breath as she gazed, but Carlota said anx- 
iously, 

“We must look out for the mare, she is fright- 
ened.” 

Ella Lou, for the first time since Jean had 
known her, showed signs of being really fright- 
ened. She was tugging back at the rope halter 
that held her to the post, her eyes showing the 
whites around them, and her nostrils wide with 
fear. Cousin Roxy went straight down to her, 
unhitched her deftly, and held her by the bridle, 
soothing her and talking as one would to a human 
being. 

“Jean, you go and get Cynthy quick as you 
can!” she called. 

Jean ran to the house and met Cynthy grop- 
ing her way nervously downstairs. 

“What on earth is it?” she faltered. “Land, 


THE PATH OF THE FIRE 815 


I ain’t had such a set-to with my heart in years. 
Is the fire cornin’ this way? Where’s Roxy?” 

“She says for you to come right away. 
Please, please hurry up. Miss Allan.” 

But Cynthy sat down in a forlorn heap on 
the step, rocking her arms, and crying, piteously. 

“Oh, I never, never can leave them, my poor, 
precious darlings. Can’t you get them for me, 
Jean? There’s General Washington and Ethan 
Allen, Betsy Ross and Pocahontas, and there’s 
three new kittens in my yarn basket in the old 
garret over the ‘L.’ ” 

Jean realized that she meant her pet cats, 
dearer to her probably than any human being 
in the world. Supporting her gently, she got 
her out of the house, promising her she would 
find the cats. For the next five minutes, just at 
the most crucial moment, she hunted for the cats, 
and finally succeeded in coaxing all of them into 
meal bags. Every scurrying breeze brought 
down fluttering wisps of half burned leaves 
from the burning woods. The shouts of the 
men could be plainly heard calling to each other 
as they worked to keep the fire back from the 
valuable timber along the river front. 

“I think we’ve just about time to get by be- 
fore the fire breaks through,” said Mrs. Ellis, 


316 JEAN OF GREENACRES 


calmly. Jean was on the back seat, one arm 
supporting old Cynthy, her other hand pacify- 
ing the rebellious captives in the bag. Carlota 
was on the front seat. She was very quiet and 
smiling a little. Jean thought how much she 
must resemble her mother, the young Contessa 
Bianca, who had been in full charge of the Red 
Cross Hospital, across the sea, for months. 

Not a word was said as Cousin Roxy turned 
Ella Lou’s white nose towards home, but they 
had not gone far before the mare stopped short 
of her own free will, snorting and backing. The 
wind had changed suddenly, and the full force 
of the smoke from the fire-swept area poured 
over them suffocatingly. Cynthy rose to her 
feet in terror, Jean’s arm around her waist, try- 
ing to hold her down, as she screamed. 

“For land’s sakes, Cynthy, keep your head,” 
called Mrs. Ellis. “If it’s the Lord’s will that 
we should all go up in a chariot of fire, don’t 
squeal out like a stuck pig. Hold her close, 
, Jean. I’m going to drive into the river.” 


RALPH’S HOMELAND 





CHAPTER XIX 
Ralph’s homeland 

At the bend of the road the land sloped sud- 
denly straight for the river brink. A quarter of 
a mile below was the dam, above Mr. Rudemeir’s 
red saw mill. Little River widened at this point, 
and swept in curves around a little island. 
There were no buildings on it, only broad low 
lush meadows that provided a home for musk- 
rats and waterfowl. Late in the fall fat otters 
could be seen circling around the still waters, 
and wild geese and ducks made it a port of call 
in their flights north and south. 

As Ella Lou started into the water, Carlota 
asked just one question. 

“How deep is it?” 

“Oh, it varies in spots,” answered Cousin 
Roxy, cheerfully; her chin was up, her firm lips 
set in an unswerving smile, holding the reins in 
a steady grasp that steadied Ella Lou’s footing. 
To Jean she had never seemed more resourceful 
or fearless. “There’s some pretty deep holes, 
here and there, but we’ll trust to Ella Lou’s 


320 JEAN OF GREENACRES 


common sense, and the workings of divine Provi- 
dence. Go ’long there, girl, and mind your 
step.” 

Ella Lou seemed to take the challenge per- 
sonally. She felt her way along the sandy bot- 
tom, daintily, and the wheels of the two seated 
democrat sank to the hubs. Out in midstream 
they met the double current, sweeping around 
both sides of the island; and here for a minute or 
two, danger seemed imminent. Cousin Roxy 
gave a quick look back over her shoulder. 

“Can you swim, Jean?” Jean nodded, and 
held on to the cats and Cynthy, grimly. It was 
hard saying which of the two were proving the 
more difficult to manage. The wagon swayed 
perilously, but Ella Lou held to her course, and 
suddenly they felt the rise of the shore line again. 
Overhead, there had flown a vanguard of fright- 
ened birds, flying ahead of the smothering clouds 
of smoke that poured now in blinding masses 
down from the burning woods. The cries and 
calls of the men working along the back fire line 
reached the little group on the far shore, faintly. 

As the mare climbed up the bank, dripping 
wet and snorting, Cousin Roxy glanced back 
over her shoulder at the way they had come. 
Cynthy gave one look too, and covered her face 


RALPH’S HOMELAND 


321 


with her hands. The flames had swept straight 
down over her little home, and she cried out in 
anguish. 

“Pity’s sakes, Cynthy, praise God that the 
two of us aren’t burning up this minute with 
those old shingles and rafters,” cried Mrs. Ellis, 
joyfully. “I could rise and sing the Doxology, 
water soaked as I am, and mean it more than I 
ever have in all of my life.” 

“Oh, and Miss Allan, not one of the cats got 
wet even,” Jean exclaimed, laughing, almost 
hysterically. “You don’t know what a time I 
had holding that bag up out of the water. Do 
turn around and look at the wonderful sight. 
See, Carlota!” 

But Carlota had jumped out of the wagon 
with Cousin Roxy, and the two of them were 
petting and tending Ella Lou, who stood trem- 
bling in every limb, her eyes still wide with fear. 

“You wonderful old heroine, you,” said Car- 
lota, softly. “I think we all owe our lives to 
your courage.” 

“She’s a fine mare, if I do say so, God bless 
her.” Cousin Roxy unwound her old brown 
veil and used it to wipe off Ella Lou’s dripping 
neck and back. If her own cloak had been dry 
she would have laid it over her for a cover. 


322 JEAN OF GREENACRES 


1 The flames had reached the opposite shore, 
hut while the smoke billowed across, Little River 
left them high and dry in the safety zone. 

“I guess we’d better be making for home as 
quick as we can,” said Cousin Roxy. Except 
for a little pallor around her lips, and an extra 
brightness to her eyes, no one could have told 
that she had just caught a glimpse of the Dark 
Angel’s pinions beside that river brink. She 
pushed back her wisps of wavy hair, climbed 
back into the wagon, and turned Ella Lou’s nose 
towards home. 

The Judge was watching anxiously, pacing 
up and down the long veranda with Billie sitting 
in his reed chair bolstered up with pillows beside 
him. He had telephoned repeatedly down to 
Greenacres, but they were all quite as anxious 
now as himself. It was Billie who first caught 
a sight of the team and its occupants. 

Kit had gone out into the kitchen to start 
dinner going. She had refused to believe that 
any harm could come to Cousin Roxy or anyone 
under her care, and at the sound of Billie’s voice, 
she glanced from the window, and caught sight 
of Jean’s familiar red cap. 

“Land alive, don’t hug me to death, all of 
you,” exclaimed Cousin Roxy. “Jean, you go 


RALPH S HOMELAND 


323 


and telephone to your mother right away, and 
relieve her anxiety. Like enough, she thinks 
we’re all burned to cinders by this time, and tell 
her she’d better have plenty of coffee and sand- 
wiches made up to send over to the men in the 
woods. All us women will have our night’s 
work cut out for us.” 

It was the girls’ first experience of a country 
forest fire. All through the afternoon the fresh 
relays of men kept arriving from the near-by 
villages, and outlying farms, ready to relieve 
those who had been working through the morn- 
ing. Up at the little white church, the old bell 
rope parted and Sally Peckham’s two little 
brothers distinguished themselves forever by 
climbing to the belfry, lying on their backs on 
the old beams, and taking their turns kicking 
the bell. 

There was but little sleep for any members of 
the family that night. Jean never forgot the 
thrill of watching the fire from the cupola win- 
dows, and with the other girls she spent most of 
the time up there until daybreak. There was a 
fascination in seeing that battle from afar, and 
realizing how the little puny efforts of a handful 
of men could hold in check such a devastating 
force. Only country dwellers could appreciate 


324 JEAN OF GREENACRES 


the peril of having all one owned in the world, 
all that was dear and precious, and comprised 
in the word “home,” swept away in the path of 
the flames. 

“Poor old Cynthy,” said Jean. “I’m so glad 
she has her cats. I shall never forget her face 
when she looked back. Just think of losing all 
the little keepsakes of a lifetime.” 

It was nearly five o’clock when Shad returned. 
He was grimy and smoky, but exuberant. 

“By jiminitty, we’ve got her under control,” 
he cried, executing a little jig on the side steps. 
“Got some hot coffee and doughnuts for a fel- 
low? Who do you suppose worked better than 
anybody? Gave us all cards and spades on how 
to manage a fire. He says this is just a little 
flea bite compared with the ones he has up home. 
He says he’s seen a forest fire twenty miles wide, 
sweeping over the mountains up yonder.” 

“Who do you mean, Shad,” asked Jean. 
“For goodness’ sake tell us who it is, and stop 
spouting.” 

“Who do you suppose I mean?” asked Shad, 
reproachfully. “Honey Hancock’s cousin, 
Ralph McRae, from Saskatoon.” 

J ean blushed prettily, as she always did when 
Ralph’s name was mentioned. She had hardly 


RALPH’S HOMELAND 


325 


seen him since his arrival, owing to Billie’s ill- 
ness, and Carlota’s visit with her. Still, oddly 
enough, even Shad’s high praise of him, made 
her feel shyly happy. 

The fire burned fitfully for three days, break- 
ing out unexpectedly in new spots, and keeping 
everyone excited and busy. The old Ames barn 
went up in smoke, and Mr. Rudemeir’s saw mill 
caught fire three times. 

“By gum!” he said, jubilantly, “I guess I sit 
out on that roof all night long, slapping sparks 
with a wet mop, but it didn’t get ahead of 
me.” 

Sally and Kit ran a sort of pony express, rid- 
ing horseback from house to house, carrying 
food and coffee over to the men who were scat- 
tered nearly four miles around the fire-swept 
area. Ralph and Piney ran their own rescue 
work at the north end of town. Honey had 
been put on the mail team with Mr. Ricketts’ 
eldest boy, while the former gave his services on 
the volunteer fire corps. The end of the third 
day Jean was driving back from Nantic station, 
after she had taken Carlota down to catch the 
local train to Providence. The Contessa had 
sent her maid to meet her there, and take her on 
to Boston. It had been a wonderful visit. Car- 


326 JEAN OF GREENACRES 


lota said, and already she was planning for J ean’s 
promised trip to the home villa in Italy. 

Visions of that visit were flitting through 
Jean’s mind as she drove along the old river 
road, and she hardly noticed the beat of hoofs 
behind her, until Ralph drew rein on Mollie be- 
side her. They had hardly seen each other to 
talk to, since her return from Boston. 

“The fire’s all out,’' he said. “We have left 
some of the boys on guard yet, in case it may be 
smouldering in the underbrush. I have just 
been telling Rudemeir and the other men, if 
they’d learn to pile their brush the way we do 
up home, they would be able to control these 
little fires in no time. You girls must be awfully 
tired out. You did splendid work.” 

“Kit and Sally did, you mean,” answered 
Jean. “All I did was to help cook.” She 
laughed. “I never dreamt that men and boys 
could eat so many doughnuts and cup cakes. 
Cousin Roxy says she sent over twenty-two 
loaves of gingerbread, not counting all the other 
stuff. Was any one hurt, at all?” 

“You mean eating too much?” asked Ralph, 
teasingly. Then more seriously, he added, “A 
few of the men were burnt a little bit, but noth- 
ing to speak of. How beautiful your spring- 


RALPH S HOMELAND 


327 


time is down here in New England. It makes 
me want to take off my coat and go to work 
right here, reclaiming some of these old worked 
out acres, and making them show the good that 
still lies in them if they are plowed deep enough.” 

Jean sighed, quickly. 

“Do you really think one could ever make any 
money here?” she asked. “Sometimes I get 
awfully discouraged, Mr. McRae. Of course, 
we didn’t come up here with the idea of being 
farmers. It was Dad’s health that brought us, 
but once we were here, we couldn’t help but see 
the chance of making Greenacres pay our way 
a little. Cousin Roxy has told us we’re in 
mighty good luck to even get our vegetables 
and fruit out of it this last year, and it isn’t the 
past year I am thinking of; it’s the next year, 
and the next one and the next. One of the most 
appalling things about Gilead is, that you get 
absolutely contented up here, and you go around 
singing blissfully, ‘I’ve reached the land of corn 
and wine, and all its blessings freely mine.’ Old 
Daddy Higginson who taught our art class 
down in New York always said that content- 
ment was fatal to progress, and I believe it. 
Father is really a brilliant man, and he’s getting 
his full strength back. And while I have a full 


328 JEAN OF GREENACRES 


sense of gratitude towards the healing powers of 
these old green hills, still I have a horror of 
Dad stagnating here.” 

Ralph turned his head to watch her face, giv- 
ing Mollie her own way, with slack rein. 

“Has he said anything himself about wanting 
to go back to his work?” he asked. 

“Not yet. I suppose that is what we really 
must wait for. His own confidence returning. 
You see, what I’m afraid of is this: Dad was 
born and brought up right here, and the granite 
of these old hills is in his system. He loves 
every square foot of land around here. Just 
supposing he should be contented to settle down, 
like old Judge Ellis, and turn into a sort of 
Connecticut country squire.” 

“There are worse things than that in the 
world,” Ralph replied. “Too many of our best 
men forget the land that gave them birth, and 
pour the full strength of their mature powers 
and capabilities into the city mart. You speak 
of Judge Ellis. Look at what that old fellow’s 
mind has done for his home community. He 
has literally brought modern improvements into 
Gilead. He has represented her up at Hart- 
ford off and on for years, when he was not sitting 
in judgment here.” 


RALPH S HOMELAND 


329 


“You mean, that you think Dad ought not to 
go back?” asked Jean almost resentfully. “That 
just because he happened to have been born 
here, he owes it to Gilead to stay here now, and 
give it the best he has?” 

Ralph laughed, good naturedly. 

“We’re getting into rather deep water, Miss 
Jean,” he answered. “I can see that you don’t 
like the country, and I do. I love it down east 
here where all of my folks came from originally, 
and I’m mighty fond of the west.” 

“Oh, I’m sure I’d like that too,” broke in 
Jean, eagerly. “Mother’s from the west, you 
know. From California, and I’d love to go out 
there. I would love the wide scope and free- 
dom I am sure. What bothers me here, are 
those rock walls, for instance.” She pointed at 
the old one along the road, uneven, half tumbling 
down, and overgrown with gray moss ; the stand- 
ing symbol of the infinite patience and labor of 
a bygone generation. “Just think of all the 
people who spent their lives carrying those 
stones, and cutting up all this beautiful land into 
these little shut-in pastures.” 

“Yes, but those rocks represent the clearing 
of fields for tillage. If they hadn’t dug them 
out of the ground, they wouldn’t have had any 


330 JEAN OF GREENACRES 


cause for Thanksgiving dinners. I’m mighty 
proud of my New England blood, and I want 
to tell you right now, if it wasn’t for the New 
England blood that went out to conquer the 
West, where would the West be today?” 

“That’s all right,” said Jean, a bit crossly for 
her, “but if they had pioneered a little bit right 
around here, there wouldn’t be so many run 
down farms. What I would like to do, now 
that Dad is getting well, is make Greenacres our 
playground in summertime, and go back home 
in the winter.” 

“Home,” he repeated, curiously. 

“Yes, we were all born down in New York,” 
answered Jean, looking south over the country 
landscape, as though she could see Manhattan’s 
panoramic skyline rising like a mirage of beck- 
oning promises. “I am afraid that is home to 
me.” 


OPEN WINDOWS 





CHAPTER XX 


OPEN WINDOWS 

“It always seems to me,” said Cousin Roxy, 
the first time she drove down with Billie to spend 
the day, “as if Maytime is a sort of fulfilled 
promise to us, after the winter and spring. 
When I was a girl, spring up here behaved it- 
self. It was sweet and balmy and gentle, and 
now it’s turned into an uncertain young tomboy. 
The weather doesn’t really begin to settle until 
the middle of May, but when it does — ” She 
drew in a deep breath, and smiled. “Just look 
around you at the beauty it gives us.” 

She sat out on the tree seat in the big old- 
fashioned garden that sloped from the south 
side of the house to what Jean called “the close.” 
The terraces were a riot of spring bloom; tall 
gold and purple flag lilies grew side by side with 
dainty columbine and poet’s narcissus. Along 
the stone walls white and purple lilacs flung their 
delicious perfume to every passing breeze. The 
old apple trees that straggled in uneven rows 
up through the hill pasture behind the barn, had 


334 JEAN OF GREENACRES 


been transformed into gorgeous splashy masses 
of pink bloom against the tender green of 
young foliage. 

“What’s Jean doing over there in the or- 
chard?” Kit rose from her knees, her fingers 
grimy with the soil, her face flushed and warm 
from her labors, and answered her own query. 

“She’s wooing the muse of Art. What was 
her name? Euterpe or Merope? Well, any- 
way that’s who she’s wooing, while we, her 
humble sisters, who toil and delve after cut 
worms — Cousin Roxy, why are there any cut 
worms? Why are there fretful midges? Or 
any of those things?” 

“Land, child, just as home exercises for our 
patience,” laughed Mrs. Ellis, happily. 

Jean was out of their hearing. Frowning 
slightly, with compressed lips, she bent over her 
work. With Shad’s help she had rigged up a 
homemade easel of birchwood, and a little three 
legged camp stool. As Shad himself would 
have said, she was going to it with a will. The 
week before she had sent off five studies to 
Cousin Beth, and two of her very best ones, 
down to Mr. Higginson. Answers had come 
back from both, full of criticism, but with plenty 
of encouragement, too. Mrs. Robbins had read 



Jean Was Going to it With a Will 

See page 334 






















, 


. 




















































OPEN WINDOWS 


335 


the two letters and given her eldest the quick 
impulsive embrace which ever since her baby- 
hood had been to Jean her highest reward of 
merit. But it was from her father, perhaps, 
that she derived the greatest happiness. He 
laid one arm around her shoulders, smiling at 
her with a certain whimsical speculation, in his 
keen, hazel eyes. 

“Well, girlie, if you will persist in developing 
such talent, we can’t afford to hide this candle 
light under a bushel. Bethiah has written also, 
insisting that you are given your chance to go 
abroad with her later on.” 

“What does Mother say?” asked Jean, 
quickly. She knew that the only thing that 
might possibly hold her back from the trip 
abroad would be her mother’s solicitude and 
loving fears for her welfare. 

“She’s perfectly willing to let you go as long 
as Cousin Beth goes with you. It would only 
be for three months.” 

“But when?” interrupted Jean. “It isn’t 
that I want to know for my own pleasure, but 
you don’t know how fearfully precious these last 
years in the ’teens seem to me. There’s such a 
terrible lot of things to learn before I can really 
say I’ve finished.” 


336 JEAN OF GREENACRES 


“And one of the first things you have to learn 
is just that you never stop learning. That you 
never really start to learn until you attain the 
humility of knowing your own limitations. So 
don’t you worry, Jeanie, you can’t possibly go 
over to Europe and swallow its Art Galleries in 
three months. By the way, if you are really go- 
ing, you had better start in learning some of the 
guide posts.” 

He crossed over to one of his book cases, and 
picked out an old well-worn Baedeker bound 
in red morocco, “Northern Italy.” He opened 
it lovingly, and its passages were well under- 
lined and marked in pencil all the way through. 
There were tiny sprays of pressed flowers and 
four leaved clovers, a five pointed fig leaf, and 
some pale silver gray olive ones. “Leaves from 
Vallambrosa,” he quoted, softly. “Your mother 
and I followed those old world trails all through 
our honeymoon, my dear.” 

Jean leaned over his shoulder, eagerly, her 
arms clasped around his neck, her cheek pressed 
to his. 

“You dear,” she said, fervently. “Do you 
know what I’m going to do with the very first 
five thousand dollars I receive for a master- 
piece? I shall send you and the Motherbird 


OPEN WINDOWS 


387 


flying back to visit every single one of those 
places. Won’t you love it, though?” 

“I’d rather take all you kiddies with us. You 
gain so much more when you share your knowl- 
edge with others. Do you know what this west 
window makes me think of, Jean?” He 
pointed one hand to the small side window that 
looked far down the valley. “Somewhere over 
yonder lies New York. Often times through 
the past year, I have stood there, and felt like 
Dante at his tower window, in old Guido Di 
Rimini’s castle at Ravenna. Joe’s pigeons 
circling around down there make me think of 
the doves which he called ‘Hope’s messengers’ 
bringing him memories in his exile from his be- 
loved Florence.” 

Jean slipped down on her knees beside him, 
her face alight with gladness. 

“Oh, Dad, Dad, you do want to go back,’ , she 
cried. “You don’t know how afraid I’ve been 
that you’d take root up here and stay forever. 
I know it’s perfectly splendid, and it has been a 
place of refuge for us all, but now that you are 
getting to be just like your old self — ” 

Her father’s hand checked her. 

“Steady, girlie, steady,” he warned. “Not 
quite so fast. I am still a little bit uncertain 


388 JEAN OF GREENACRES 


when I try to speed up. We’ve got to be 
patient a little while longer.” 

Jean pressed his hand in hers, and understood. 
If it had been hard for them to be patient, it had 
been doubly so for him, groping his way back 
slowly, the past year, on the upgrade to health. 

Softly she repeated a poem that was a favorite 
of Cousin Roxy’s, and which he had liked to 
hear. 


THE HILLS OF REST 

Beyond the last horizon’s rim. 

Beyond adventure’s farthest quest. 

Somewhere they rise, serene and dim. 

The happy, happy Hills of Rest. 

Upon their sunlit slopes uplift 

The castles we have built in Spain — 

While fair amid the summer drift 
Our faded gardens flower again. 

Sweet hours we did not live go by 
To soothing note on scented wing; 

In golden lettered volume lie [ 

The songs we tried in vain to sing. 

They all are there: the days of dream 
That built the inner lives of men! 

The silent, sacred years we deem 

The might be and the might have been. 


OPEN WINDOWS 


339 


Some evening when the sky is gold, 

I’ll follow day into the west; 

Nor pause, nor heed, till I behold 
The happy, happy Hills of Rest. 

Jean was thinking of their talk as she sat out 
in the orchard today, trying to catch some of the 
fleeting beauty of its blossom laden trees. It 
was an accepted fact now, her trip abroad with 
Mrs. Newell, and they planned to sail the first 
week in September, so as to catch the Fall 
Academy and Exhibitions, all the way from 
London south to Rome. A letter from Bab had 
told her of the Phelps boy’s success; after fight- 
ing for it a year he had taken the Price de Rome . 
This would give him a residence abroad, three 
years with all expenses paid, full art tuition and 
one thousand dollars in cash. Babbie had writ- 
ten: 

U I am teasing Mother to trot over there once 
again, and am pretty sure she will have to give 
in. The poor old dear, if only she would be con- 
tented to let me ramble around with Nedda, we 
would be absolutely safe, but she always acts as 
if she were the goose who had not only laid a 
golden egg, but had hatched it. And behold me 
as the resultant genius. Anyway we’ll all hope 
to meet you down at Campodino. I hear the 


340 JEAN OF GREENACRES 


Contessa’s villa there is perfectly wonderful. 
Mother says it’s just exactly like the one that 
Browning rented during his honeymoon. He 
tells about it in ‘DeGustibus.’ I believe most 
of the rooms have been Americanized since the 
Contessa married Carlota’s father, and you don’t 
have to go down to the seashore when you want 
to take a bath. But the walls are lovely and 
crumbly with plenty of old lizards running in 
and out of the mold. I envy you like sixty. I 
wish I had a Contessa to tuck me under her wing 
like that.” 

“How are you getting along, girlie?” asked a 
well known voice behind her. 

“I don’t know, Dad,” said Jean, leaning back 
with her head on one side, looking for all the 
world, as Kit would have said, like a meditative 
brown thrush. “I can’t seem to get that queer 
silver gray effect. You take a day like this, just 
before a rain, and it seems to underlie everything. 
I’ve tried dark green and gray and sienna, and 
it doesn’t do a bit of good.” 

“Mix a little Chinese black with every color 
you use,” said her father, closing one eye to look 
at her painting. “It is the old masters’ trick. 
You’ll find it in the Flemish school, and the 


OPEN WINDOWS 


341 


Veronese. It gives you the atmospheric gray 
quality in everything. Hello, here come Ralph 
and Piney.” 

Piney waved her hand in salutation, but joined 
Kit and Helen in the lower garden at their grub- 
bing for cut worms. 

“If you put plenty of salt in the water when 
you sprinkle those, it’ll help a lot,” she told them. 

“Oh, we’ve salted them. Shad told us that. 
We each took a bag of salt and went out sprink- 
ling one night, and then it rained, and I honestly 
believe it was a tonic to the cut worm colony. 
The only thing to do, is go after them and an- 
nihilate them.” 

Ralph lifted his cap in greeting to the group 
on the terrace, but went on up to the orchard. 
Kit watched him with speculative eyes and spoke 
in her usual impulsive fashion. 

“Do you suppose for one moment that the 
prince of Saskatoon is coming wooing my fair 
sister? Because if he has any such notions at 
all, I’d like to tell him she’s not for him,” she 
said, emphatically. “Now I believe that I’m a 
genius, but I have resources. I can do house- 
work, and be the castle maid of all work, and 
smile and be a genius still, but Jean needs nour- 
ishing. If he thinks for one moment he’s going 


342 JEAN OF GREENACRES 


to throw her across his saddle bow and carry her 
off to Saskatoon, he’s very much mistaken.” 

Piney glanced up at the figures in the orchard, 
before she answered in her slow, deliberate 
fashion, 

“I’m sure, I don’t know, but Ralph said he 
was coming back here every spring, so he can’t 
expect to take her away this year.” 

Up in the orchard Mr. Robbins talked of 
apple culture, of the comparative virtues of 
Peck’s Pleasants and Shepherd Sweetings, and 
whether peaches would grow in Gilead’s climate. 
From the birch woods across the road there came 
the clinking of a cow bell where Buttercup led 
some young stock in search of good pasturage. 
Shad was busy mending the cultivator that had 
balked that morning, as he was weeding out the 
rows of June peas. He called over to Mr. 
Robbins for some advice, and the latter joined 
him. 

Ralph threw himself down in the grass beside 
the little birch easel. Jean bent over her canvas, 
touching in some shadows on the trunks of the 
trees, absently. Her thoughts had wandered 
from the old orchard, as they did so often these 
days. It was the future that seemed more real 
to her, jvith its hopes and ambitions, than the 


OPEN WINDOWS 


343 


present. Gilead was not one half so tangible as 
Campodino perched on the Campagna hills with 
the blue of the Mediterranean lapping at its feet. 

“Aren’t you afraid you’ll miss it all?” asked 
Ralph, suddenly. 

“Perhaps,” she glanced down at him in Jean’s 
own peculiar, impersonal way. To Ralph, she 
had always been the little princess royal, ever 
since he had first met her, that night a year ago, 
in the spring gloaming. Dorrie and Kit had 
met the stranger more than half way, and even 
Helen, the fastidious, had liked him at first sight, 
but with Jean, there had always been a certain 
amount of reserve, her absorption in her work 
always had hedged her around with thorns of 
aloofness and apparent shyness. “But you see 
after all, no matter how far one goes, one always 
comes back, if there are those you love best wait- 
ing for you.” 

“You’ll only be gone three months, won’t 
you?” 

Jean shook her head. 

“It depends on how I’m getting on. Cousin 
Beth says I can find out in that time whether I 
am just a plain barnyard chicken, or a real wild 
swan. Did you ever hear of how the islanders 
around Nantucket catch the young wild geese, 


344 JEAN OF GREENACRES 


and clip their wings? They keep them then as 
decoys, until there comes a day when the wings 
are full grown again, and the geese escape. 
Wouldn’t it be awful to imagine one were a cap- 
tive wild goose, and then try to fly and discover 
you were just a nice little home bred White 
Leghorn pullet.” 

“Oh, Jean,” called Kit. “Cousin Roxy’s go- 
ing, now.” 

Ralph rose, and extended his hand. 

“I hope your wings carry you far, Jean,” he 
said earnestly. “We’re leaving for Saskatoon 
Monday morning and I’ll hardly get over again 
as Honey and I are doing all the packing and 
crating, but you’ll see me again next spring, 
won’t you?” 

J ean laid her hand in his, frankly. 

“Why, I didn’t know you were going so soon,” 
she said. “Of course, I’ll see you if you come 
back east.” 

“I’ll come,” Ralph promised, and he stood 
where she left him, under the blossoming apple 
trees, watching the princess royal of Greenacres 
join her family circle. 




THE END 









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